“We thought it would be hard to replace her, so we didn’t. There had always been changes and this was a big one, but our attitude was to soldier on”: The prog pioneers who evaded disaster and reinvented themselves in 1970

Fairport Convention in 1970.

In 1970 a very different Fairport Convention released Full House. Following up the genre-defining Liege & Lief was always going to be a challenge, but Full House became a pivotal point in their career. Made after both founder member Ashley Hutchings and vocalist Sandy Denny had left, it marked the arrival of bassist Dave ‘Peggy’ Pegg. To coincide with its performance in full at 2020’s Cropredy Festival, Prog caught up with the album’s four surviving musicians – Richard Thompson, Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks – to uncover the story behind its creation.

“On my 22nd birthday – November 2, 1969 – I went to Mothers club in Birmingham with my ex-wife Christine to see Fairport Convention,” says the group’s current bassist Dave Pegg. “I had never seen them before but I knew [violinist] Dave Swarbrick from his work with Martin Carthy and I had played with him in the Ian Campbell Group.