fairport Convention observation

[Darren Bailey]

I have just been listening to a few albums by Doc Watson and I was surprised to learn that Matty Groves appears on his 1966 offering. I always thought that was a Fairport original; I shall have to start reading the sleeve notes. Does anyone know of any earlier versions?

[Schlegel]

Lots... earliest written lyrics date to the 17thC.

[Martin Jonas]

Matty Groves, aka "Little Musgrave" is a traditional folk ballads which appears in the Child collection in the 1890s (it's #81 in that collection). As with all Child ballads, there are very many text variations dependign on where the texts were collected from traditional folk singers -- the ones published by Child can be found at this link, but there are very many more.

There are any number of recordings that pre-date the 1969 Fairport version on their Liege & Lief album. One of them was even recorded by a Fairport member, Dave Swarbrick: it's on the album "Prince Heathen" recorded only a few months earlier in a duo with Martin Carthy. Not much similarity to the Fairport version, though, either in text or tune. Other pre-1969 version are by, for example, Joan Baez, A.L. Lloyd, Ian Campbell etc. Plus, of course, Doc Watson. Generally, British versions seem to prefer the "Little Musgrave" name and American ones the "Matty Groves" name -- Fairport being an obvious exception, although I think their text is mainly Appalachian. Other notable versions are by Planxty and by Nic Jones, but those were recorded after the Fairport one (although being not at all similar to it).

Despite all of this, however, you'll notice that the Fairport version has very little similarity indeed to all of these earlier (and indeed later) versions. Fairport did extensive edits to the traditional text, cutting out major bits of the story and cobbling the rest together with their favourite verses from several different variants.

Most importantly, Fairport did NOT use any of the several tunes previously associated with that song, but instead used a completely different tune -- namely the tune to the song "Shady Grove". "Shady Grove" is another traditional song (widely found in Appalachia), and also recorded by Doc Watson, but prior to Fairport going into the studio it had no relation whatsoever to Matty Groves/Little Musgrave: different tune, different works, different story line. Apparently, Fairport initially tried out the words of Matty Groves to the tune of Shady Grove as a sort of musical pun solely because of the similarity of the titles. They liked the result and decided to record it that way, and the rest is history...

So, it's a traditional song and a traditional tune, but marrying the two together is Fairport's work. For what it's worth, the credit on Liege & Lief is "traditional, arr. Fairport".

Martin

[Jon Hall]

I've always assumed it was a traditional song. Was it included in the Child ballads?

[Darren Bailey]

Thank you Martin, you've given me some more things to seek out - and thanks for the background info.

[rico mando]

on a side note
i never knew for the longest time that it was Sandy Denny doing the vocals with Robert Plant in battle of evermore. just thought i would throw out. though i am sure every one else knew that.

[Jon Hall]

Martin, I appreciate the background info fairport's arrangement. I always wondered about the similarity of the two songs.

[Schlegel]

I've always assumed it was a traditional song. Was it included in the Child ballads?

Yep.

[M.Marmot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0-gcccksAg

Strangely enough, the first time i took notice of that song was in this version by Planxty... it started a noodling in the back of my head 'have'nt i heard that song before?', sure enough once i started looking in to it, up she appears on numerous albums i had... it was just one of those long long ballads that i passed over as i did not want to learn all those verses... in fairness theres some great songs in the Childe collection and others but they can sometimes rattle on forever, beyond my means, but i have enormous respect for anyone who can arrange for them and keep them animated... and far more respect for anyone that can sing them unaccompanied and acapella and bring out the drama.