FAIRPORT'S CROPREDY CONVENTION
August 13th, 14th and 15th 2026
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2nd Day
Cropredy Primary School Folk Class
Danny & The Champions Of The World
Danny Bradley
The Celtic Social Club
Marshall Gilmour Webbs
Breabach
Spooky Men's Chorale
Richard Thompson
It’s a few minutes to 11am at the signing booth. Chairs are being set and iced water laid out in preparation for the Fairport Convention press conference. Chris, Peggy, Simon and Ric duly take their seats and there is some small talk before we begin. Chris finds a handheld electric fan and smiles when he is told the speeds ‘go up to eleven’. Ric asks me about my t-shirt (Love Football, We Invented It) and then lets us know that he’s never been to a game in his life although he will be going with his brother soon to see the Blues i.e. Birmingham City F.C. Simon is content to sit and wait; Peggy is anxious to get going as ‘We all want to see the Primary School Folk Class’. Without further ado then...
Fairport Convention
Q: I was wondering if, due to the extreme heat, there was any logistical problems that turned up that you didn't expect, either onstage or offstage?
DP: Well, there was a problem when we arrived on Thursday. We were just coming into the main gate following a beautiful vintage camper, totally restored, absolutely wonderful and we were right behind it and it turned left into the gate and the back exploded. The back of the van, it just went whoosh! and it was a hole in the back of the van. It was like a bomb had gone off and I thought, you know, the whole lot's going to go but within 30 seconds, the fire guys were out there with the carbon dioxide, putting it out, and the owner’s over there now. They got him onto the campsite.
RS: To be honest, you weren't expecting such a dramatic answer, as that were you?
Q: No, I wasn't, actually.
RS: I was going to say the fiddles go out of tune and he comes out with an explosion…
DP: Yeah, I mean, it's just the fact that people get fatigued really quick sitting out there. The audience have been really good, you know. They know what to expect, they’ve got umbrellas and they're looking after themselves.
SN: I'd add, in practical terms, that I noticed the crowd was quite thin coming in but when we got on stage, I was surprised how many people had chosen to come in, on the hottest day in history. I know, personally, a number of people who cried off yesterday, who gave it a miss because it was just too much. We'll see more of a field for today.
Q: You've got a couple of your former support acts, Danny Bradley and Jen Butterworth, from the recent tours on the line-up. What do you look for in a support act?
RS: Well, everything that those guys have got. They're lovely people with immense talent and, of course, with Jen, we've got the amazing Will Pound not only harmonica, but also an amazing melodeon player. Sometimes he plays the melodeon like it's a percussion instrument.
SN: I think all the acts we've chosen to support us on the winter tour, haven't had a very high profile, so we've had the pleasure of introducing them to a larger audience than perhaps they've encountered before but the main thing we like about them all is we like what they play. We like what they do. We like their attitude and by the end of a six-week tour, or a five-week tour, whatever it is, we've naturally become much closer and you see that because they come back to the festival and they remain on first-name terms forever.
RS: They're also people who have a great relationship with the audience.
CL: It's really nice to come on stage when we do our crossover number with them which is always a lovely moment. There's one in their sets when we join them and we play with them. You can feel the audience are so warmed up and so ready for more music, and it's thanks to them. People come in cold, they sit down, whatever's happened to them on the way or in their life, they're in their hands for 20 minutes or so and it makes a big difference.
DP: There are so many young acts out there that we could have, but the other criteria is they have to have a current CD out that they want to sell, because we don't pay them anything for doing the tour. No hotels, no expenses, anything. They're totally reliant on their CD sales. So, you can imagine something like doing 25 gigs all over England, it's not cheap. But luckily, certainly Danny and Jen, they sell enough CDs to cover the cost of doing it. Jen's CD and album is just such a lavish production. It's a piece of art.
RS: Actually, when I got home last night, my friend Chris, who runs me about and stuff, he said, what should we watch and he hadn't really heard Jen because he hadn't been able to come and see her on the tour and there's a thing on YouTube where she explains her guitar setup. She's a fantastic guitar player but she's also got a pedalboard…I mean, I'm proud of my pedalboard, I think mine’s pretty cool, but mine looks like it's from the Stone Age when compared with Jen's. The way she's got stuff like these special two little pickups and just the bottom two strings, because she can just make the bottom two strings play octave, but not the rest of the strings. It's wonderful. It's worth going on to YouTube and you can see just how amazing she is.
DP: And Danny, Danny Bradley, he's just such a great songwriter. He's got instant appeal. It's not kind of folk. It's not like any other singer-songwriter. He's got his own touch and again, his own guitar technique, which is superb. We've had some fantastic opening acts. Sometimes it's worrying for us because they're better than we are. (laughter) We finish a thing off on Saturday night and you see the quality of the bands that are on. We're witnessing it in the audience. We go, oh Christ.
CL: Le Vent Du Nord last night was just sensational.
Q: Their instruments were very strange…
DP: The hurdy-gurdy, that's the killer. His solo on the hurdy-gurdy was incredible.
Q: There was one man playing with his feet…
SN: That's a Québécois thing. They must have incredible core strength to do that. It's like you're running a marathon and playing the fiddle.
DP: The sense of rhythm helps as well. Collectively, I've never heard anything like it. It was like one person. They swung so much. That's what music's all about. You only get that in a live situation when you can see what's going on. It lifted the whole field. It was just joyful.
Q: I've read a couple of your recent posts which seem to be saying looking forward to next year, obviously, but also, if I correctly interpreted it, saying 60 and beyond?
SN: I can say the future of the band is ongoing - it always has been. We've always crossed bridges when we've come to them. We haven't gone out to build them in front of us. We haven't civil engineered our future and the festival is a perfect example of that. This festival has to pay for itself; it has to make its own way. When it succeeds, when the dust all settles and the meetings are all finished and the sums are all done, then we can either pat ourselves on the back and say, OK, now we can plan for next year but at this point, it's not an absolute commitment that next year will happen. I'm fairly confident we will be reassembling on this field in 52 weeks' time and possibly beyond. I think the point is, the corollary of that is what is not being said is the 60 years, we've done. The time will come when I will want to step away or Force Majeure will intervene and I will be no longer be able to do my duties. That will be a time for an assessment and that applies to all of us but all we can do is plan for the future and keep the dates in the diary.
Q: If I can ask a kind of more general question which kind of stems from that. To what do you attribute this band's incredible longevity?
SN: Those people behind you. (Simon gestures to the audience now coming into the field)
RS: The band's also never been like pop stars. Robbie Williams wouldn't go out and chat with everybody because he couldn't.
DP: We don't do it because we've got so many creditors. (laughter)
RS: I just think this whole thing, every Fairport gig, is just like a meeting with friends. You know, we go out and talk to people who are friends of the band. We don't consider ourselves pop stars in any way. We like what we do and like the people we do it for.
DP: Well, I think there's a lot true in what Ric says. You know, we've always relied on, in order to pay the rent, we've had to tread the boards. You know, we never sold vast quantities of albums and stuff like that. We've also, unlike other bands, we've done it, we've played music as a bunch of friends more than, you know, bands that get together once every eight years to make an album. Like The Stones, , they probably never see each other and then every five years or so they'll get together and then go out and do a tour and then do nothing. In the Fairport's case, we've always had to get in the van and do a couple of tours and we still love doing that. It's like playing music live that's our forte rather than making albums. And I think people appreciate that. The other thing that the Fairport's do is, when we tour, we don't just do four gigs because our audience have grown up with us and they're too old to travel now. They wait till we come to their town. It's us that have to do the travelling, which is great. If they live in Manchester, we can't just do four gigs like big bands do. Let's do Newcastle Arena, Glasgow Arena and all that stuff because our fans won't travel. They'll wait till you come to them. That's our situation but we love touring and we love getting in the van although it gets more difficult every year. Getting out of it's easier. (laughter)
Q: Are you sticking to the same venues again or are you adding new ones?
DP: Tristan Bryant, who does our sound, is also our agent and we try to go to the same places. Our tours are usually about 25 dates in 5 weeks or 6 weeks which is a really hard schedule. We only have Mondays off and we'll try and cover the whole country as much as we can. If some venues aren't available you have to look for alternatives because places book that far in advance nowadays. We like going back to places like our favourite gig in London, the Union Chapel. We love going there which is why we're doing it on May 27th next year to celebrate the 60th anniversary.
Q: On the subject of next year and the age are there any ideas of what you can ensure?
DP: No. Tristan, hopes we'll go on forever because he's doing really well. He's our sound man, he drives us around, he's our bank manager as well the way things are going but Tristan, in order to ensure the group's longevity, six months ago, phoned Simon up and said look I'm thinking of buying a defibrillator for the van, can I get it on expenses? (laughter) We had a talk about it and we thought well it's probably a good investment. He's been trained in how to use it and he carries it around in the van. It’s a great advantage because when you try and sell us to other festivals, I know promoters think ‘Oh they're still going? They're getting on a bit; it might be a bit risky…’ Tristan goes ‘We've got our own defibrillator how about that!’
Q: Any other concessions or acknowledgements of your ageing status?
RS: Yesterday I played with my old pal John Etheridge who played fantastically he was amazing. No different, as great as he was in his twenties. He's 78 now and he played the guitar like a dream, no signs of ageing whatsoever; 80 is not that old anymore.
DP: Certainly, Ralph McTell who's not past 80 but he's doing well he's coming to join us tomorrow night for a song.
RS: I saw a recent interview with Mel Brooks and he's as hilarious and sharp as ever and he's 100.
Q: Dave you'll be returning to Dudley for your birthday celebration in November, why Dudley?
DP: Why not? Dudley’s fantastic and serves other musos well. It's central it's cheap, it's a very suitable venue and we can get in there all day to rehearse. I've got Joe Broughton's Birmingham Conservatoire coming along to play. I'm really excited about that…
SN: We're going to need a bigger dressing room…(laughter)
DP: If Cropredy’s on next year - which I hope it is because I've booked them already – they’ll start off on Thursday afternoon because there's like 50 kids and it's the only time you can put them on. The great thing about them is we give them a piece to do and we say learn that but we never practise with them and they all come up with their own arrangements.
Q: Do you have any plans for any albums of new material?
SN: I think Chris has got a couple of songs…
CL: I have got quite a few. It's an ongoing thing and I feel very fortunate to be able to have the band as a testing bed for songs. Some stuff I come up with I know instinctively it's not the band material but others I can hear it going out and then the chaps get a hold of it, it's always a joy. So yeah, I've got stuff in the pipeline.
RS: I've got an instrumental featuring Peggy playing the cello because he's getting a good hand on the cello.
DP: I wouldn't say that actually but yeah, I can fake it well.
SN: If we brought one out tomorrow it wouldn't be premature. I take the point that it's possibly overdue but it's just life is so full. We don't spend really that much time together when we're not on the road so it takes more planning to do an album but yeah, I would hope that we make another studio album at some point in the near future but how near? I couldn’t say.
Q: Chris, have you got any new instruments?
CL: I have! We were in Portugal recently on the Douro, doing a beautiful cruise down the river we had a fantastic time on every level…
SN: Working very hard!
CL: …it was wonderful and I was lucky enough to come across a fantastic music shop in Porto that was closed when I first walked past it in the morning so I made sure I got back there in the afternoon and it was like being in a sweet shop. All these fantastic instruments and I picked up a thing called a cavaquinho, a ukulele size, beautiful looking thing. It's got its own kind of Portuguese structure to it with all metal strings tuned very highly so it chimes when you play it. There’s a great guy called Júlio Pereira and he's brought the instrument back into fashion. He's a wonderful musician and I got a couple of his albums out there. He's a really forward-thinking musician but within the tradition and he's brought this little instrument back in and it's a wonderful sound so I want to get it on the next Fairport album.
RS: Chris is amazing. I remember when we were in America the first time we went into a shop and they've got Native American Indian flutes and Chris said to the guy ‘Can I have a go on that?’ and he said sure and Chris just played it and they thought he was a Native American Indian - he was a bit suntanned at the time (laughter)
Q; Can you see the festival increasing capacity?
DP: No. Now it's at a smaller capacity, it's ideal for us and the kind of acts that we've got now, all want to be here at Cropredy and the audience that comes here, in this limited capacity, come here because they love those kinds of acts. People like Alice Cooper, they've all done us favours in the past. Brian Wilson, Status Quo… in terms of trying to book them and commit to them, we don't have the budget to do it. One of those headline acts would cost as much as the budget for this whole weekend for all the bands. Nowadays we can't compete with that and we'll never be able to get a headline act like those again but we don't want to because we figure we're the headline act now and if people don't want to come and see Fairport Convention then don't come. Luckily there's six and a half thousand who do you know and I think everybody enjoys the extra elbow room they have in this format.
SN: There's been no sacrifice, the only actual sacrifice is the two screens down to one. All the same trading opportunities are here but everybody's got more space in the campsites, more space around the field, easier to get about it's a win and it works. It's right sizing, it's not downsizing.
DP: It's comfy and it's like it used to be. It's got a vibe like the early Cropredy’s used to be. Everybody's having such a great time, we're all at the same frame of mind and we're all there for the right reasons it's lovely
Q: I did walk around the field yesterday talking to quite a few people and they all actually really like the right sizing of it…everyone can get to their favourite spot.
SN: Yes. Everybody has their mental picture of their proprietary patch. I mean, we do, my family we've got our patch it would be just feel wrong if we were sitting at a different view of the stage.
DP: And being able to find it at our age as well…(laughter) The sound is superb as well. That system, I've heard so many people commenting on that and the crew, when you see a band come off, the minute they put their instruments down, there's like about 16 people onstage and everything disappears. They've got about twenty minutes to change over and it's so efficient. They're brilliant and they love coming back to Cropredy. The great thing about Cropredy is that you bring your seat, you get comfy and everything comes to you. You don't have to get up and walk to how many stages there are, this is a comfy festival. Sit down, relax it will all come to you… get your mates to get some beer.
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Fairport Convention
The press conference ends and the Fairports make sure they thank each and every one of us for coming. I walk down to the backstage area with Ric and mention that Gil sends her best to him and he reciprocates, asking how she is. Ric heads off for an interview, I go to my car, collect the chairs and return to the field. We are settled with a pint, just in time to see the Cropredy Primary School Folk Class being shuffled about on stage by their orderly, Katie Harris. As with last year, chuffed and proud Mums and Dads gather around the front of the stage and once again, the kids have us grinning like cheshire cats. It’s fun, it’s chaos, it’s that primary school innocence we all remember so well but most importantly, it’s the future of Folk and there isn’t a single person there who doesn’t rally around their achievement. Every week, for one hour a week for the entire year they practiced for today, I quietly wish I had gone to that school.
It’s hot again today but not unbearable. As I throw yet another half a tub of suncream onto my exposed flesh, Terry arrives, one half of Terry and Jean, our friends from Plymouth. Jean’s not good in the sun so she’ll be coming later and we have a quick catch-up during the changeover. We actually did this yesterday as well but I was so groggy from the heat I barely remember them being there so a restart of sorts feels good and talking of feeling good, listening to Danny and The Champions of the World start their set gives you that similar feeling of turning your pillow over in bed on a hot night. Soothing and comforting, his music and band have a beautiful ambiance that suits the summer sun. They are a slow build from their opening laid-back number, ‘Talking A Good Time’ through an hour of heartfelt songs and solos to ‘Every Beat Of My Heart’ which is a couple of tempos above laid-back. The weather, of course, couldn’t be predicted way back when they were booked for this spot but if it could have been, there would have been no better choice. The field were kept dancing at a comfortable pace.
Our second Danny of the day, Danny Bradley, made a guest appearance at the festival last year during the headliner’s set and wowed us with his style of playing – you’ve never seen anything like it. This year he’s back with a solo set, just him and his guitar and a set of songs that justifies his ‘Grand Prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest’. He’s a talker as well, happy to explain where his songs come from before slipping into another baffling guitar plucking/strumming rhythm while singing with an air of confidence and maturity. Us guitarists were fascinated; the entire audience were charmed and captivated in equal measures.
Towards the end of his set, it was time for me to pop backstage and meet Danny No.1. Cool as a cucumber, he arrived at the press tent, smiling and greeting everyone, instantly recognisable wearing same clobber that he was wearing onstage.
Danny George Wilson
Q: That was my first time to see you Danny. A thoroughly enjoyable set, you create such a lovely feel on the stage which flows off into the audience. It's a special thing many bands, as good as their music is, can't do. What's the secret, champ?
DGW: Well, I don't think we feel any different to the people watching. We're music fans and we love music and the people in the audience are an equally important part of what's happening. I heard someone say once that a gig or a festival performance is a ball and the band pass the ball to the audience and the audience pass the ball back and if you throw the ball and no one catches it and they don't throw it back, it doesn't happen so everyone's as important as each other in the whole affair but also, we play music, we love it. I think after all these years, even from the very beginning, we feel lucky to be playing. We feel like it's a privilege and we're grateful. We all like having a good time and a laugh. I found out fairly early on that watching a band who look like they're either really scared or overly serious is no fun for anyone so we just be ourselves. It's quite liberating not to have any personas.
Q: I went through a few interviews that you've done in the past and a couple of times you mentioned Ronnie Lane. One of my heroes, criminally underrated in my view. Did you ever meet him?
DGW: No, I met Ian McLagan a few times. I never saw Ronnie play; It was all just a bit too early. My kids are now 24 and 22 but they grew up with Ronnie Lane. ‘Roll On Babe and ‘The Poacher’ and a few of those other songs, certainly of the first record, are massive songs in my house, it's the romance and the proximity. It doesn't matter what music you're making but when you clearly want to connect and almost make it a familiar affair, that's what Ronnie does beautifully. Even when he's singing about his family and the romance of his life, if it's the right music for you, it clicks entirely. You feel that exactly, the thing he's trying to convey. ‘Debris’ from A Nod’s As Good As A Wink is probably my favourite London song of all time.
Q: You seem to be a musician that kind of cruises through. You don't seem to worry too much about the business or image or fashion or promoting yourself, you're just happy to go out and play the music. Like you don't have a care in the world. Is that true or false?
DGW: It's true and by the way, when people talk about music and talk about having a gift, I'm not talking about me being gifted. I'm talking about when I was young and brought up playing the guitar and meeting the people who I then went on to be great friends with who I would never have met had I never played the guitar. It's a gift to me, not to anybody else. It's the most beautiful thing that could ever have happened to me. I've never wanted to be famous. I hate celebrity. It's just got worse and worse and more intense. I hate the internet as well. I have to do it a bit as I run a record shop. I've found that the happiest place in the world for me is at home with the people I love and listening to music or playing music. Either way, it equals joy. I'm a massive record collector and a huge fan and I just see the records and the live music as the same thing.
Q: I would love to have a browse through your collection.
DGW: Oh, man, I've got some great records.
Q: You're Not A Stranger Here received unanimous praise and rightly so and the songs work really well live as well. I can see that you're a very modest person. How do you take that level of praise?
DGW: Well, if you believe the good ones, you have to believe the bad ones. So, it's lovely. As long as you don't get more bad ones than good ones. (smiles) The doing it is the thing, that's the dream for me and everything else just goes with it. It's by the by. I'm honoured that people like it. I've had a lovely run. I was in a band called Grand Drive and our first record came out in 97 which is now nigh on 30 years of making music and no one's ever particularly hated it. Lots of people, it's not their cup of tea but there's been enough people who really love it that it's worth doing.
Q: Do you ever get people approaching you telling you how much your music means to them? That must be a nice feeling.
DGW: Incredible.
Q: Thankful and modest again.
DGW: Oh I’m massively grateful. Listen, I've played at weddings and I've played at funerals and for people I love. What greater honour could you bestow on someone that your music or a song means so much to them and their family that they actually want it played at a very, very important occasion. To be one of the people that that may happen to a few times is great, isn't it?
Q: It certainly is. Scenario. Sunday morning, Nice bright day, not hot, you get up, you did a gig the night before. What do you put on the stereo?
DGW: Depends on who's in the house, to be honest. (laughs) I listen to a lot of folk music and British folk music. I love American country folk and stuff. Funnily enough, we're at a folk festival so if it was this Sunday, this weekend coming I'd probably put on Nic Jones' Penguin Eggs record. It's one of the most astonishing records I've ever heard in my life. Just genius. Sandy Denny would always be there - I love Fairport. I live in a place called Carshalton which is not too far from Wimbledon where Sandy Denny grew up and where the Unhalfbricking cover is taken outside her mum and dad's house. I kind of collect local stories that I can show off to people about. Sandy Denny being from within a stone's throw is quite a big one for us.
Q: Danny, an absolute pleasure. Thank you.
DGW: Thank you very, very much. Thanks for having me.
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Danny George Wilson
The Celtic Social Club are already on stage and rocking by the time I get back to the seats. It’s apparent that these first-timers have set out to prove they are worthy of playing on such hallowed ground and the opening songs ‘You Should Know’ followed by ‘Love Is A Madness’, do just that. ‘El Dorado’ could be dropped into a (sober) Pogues gig and the daring ‘Yes I Am’ from their latest album may be out of line with the rest of the song selection but received the loudest applause. It’s high tempo, bum-shifting stuff from the largely French band - their singer is Irish - who like to have a laugh with the audience as well at their own expense. They’ll be back.
Next up, one of the newest and fastest rising acts around. Marshall Gilmour Webbs are four women with beautiful voices, the combination of which has to be heard to fully appreciate. They cover lesser-known songs by familiar artists and have a few of their own and it’s no secret that their show-stopper is Pink Floyd’s ‘Great Gig In The Sky’ They wisely put that in quite early in the set which then lets us sit back and marvel at what was going on. I could roll out the ‘voices of angels, etc’ clichés but they are so much more than that. Suffice to say, any vocal combo who can take on Minnie Ripperton’s ‘Les Fleurs’ and make it their own are way beyond compare.
Let the pipes commence! Lots of them please and Breabach duly oblige. It’s gentle, soothing and very Scottish music from the quintet who have been together for twenty years, toured the world and pushed the boundaries of Celtic music in the process. They swap instruments frequently, there’s a bit of step dancing, bagpipe duets, jigs and flings, all accompanied by dancing and clapping and probably a kitchen sink. Equally at home in the local pub or the Royal Albert Hall, they bring the Highlands to you for an hour which seems to fly past like the red kites circling the field as the sun starts to dip.
Half an hour later, the sun had gone down but the stage is lit up. They were here two years ago and this is a much-anticipated return for the fourteen magnificent voices of the Spooky Men’s Chorale. Their wit and cheeky sense of humour is a large part of the show so for that “traditional Swedish folk song”, ‘Dancing Queen’, they sport Viking helmets with horns. There is a compilation of the train announcements they were asked to do for Melbourne’s Metro Trains, a system so bad there was nothing good to sing about and of course, their brilliant hoedown version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ complete with Freddie white vest reveal. The “Thank you for inviting us back” at the end is genuine, they were honoured to be there and we were delighted to share the time with them.
The atmosphere is tangible; the anticipation, electric. There is undoubtedly no one more welcome to Cropredy than Richard Thompson. Along with Simon Nicol, a co-founder of Fairport Convention in 1967, he left on instinct in 1971 to pursue a successful solo career. He has returned to the fold on many occasions including two years ago when he came in at the last minute to fill-in for the Trevor Horn Band, Trevor unable to make it due to illness. He was, staggeringly good. This time he has had plenty of time to prepare and we were winess to what many have since said was his finest performance ever at Cropredy.
Beginning the show on his own, he runs through a few acoustic numbers, bouncing between decades with ease. He goes electric and introduces Zara Phillips to sing alongside him, continuing to perform old and more recent songs. ‘Tinker’s Rhapsody’ from his 2020 Serpent’s Tears EP sits comfortably next to 1974’s ‘Withered And Died’ from I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, a song incidentally, when introduced, get an overenthusiastic ‘Yeah!’ from an audience member to which Richard replies “Shut up. You never bought it” with a wry smile on his face. He is a master of building a set, song by song, with little increments along the way but then he takes one very big leap. Welcome to the stage, Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks for the final third, an electric extravaganza that had our little group open-mouthed, goggle eyed and finally in tears of joy. Watching them play ‘Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking’ and ‘Everybody’s Stealing’ from his upcoming album, Hippies, Thugs And Heroes was a treat in itself but then the classics were rolled out including ‘Wall Of Death’ and ‘Shoot Out The Lights’. They end with blistering version of ‘Tear Stained Letter’ where bandmates for the night really stepped up and rocked the field like it’s never been done before. Follow that? Amazingly, he did with back-to-acoustic version of ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’. A perfect end to a perfect set, we made our way back to our tents, stunned, elated and exhausted.