Fairport Convention - "Babbacombe" Lee (1971)
Tracklist front / back album covers
Fairport Convention - "Babbacombe" Lee
Side one
1. "John's reflection on his boyhood, his introduction to Miss Keyes and The Glen, his restlessness, and his struggles with his family, finally successful, to join the navy" 6:19
2. "This was the happiest period in his life. All locked set fair for a career until he was stricken with sickness and invalided out of his chosen niche in life. Reluctantly and unhappily he turned to a number of menial occupations and finally returned to the services of Miss Keyes" 10:12
3. "Tragedy now strikes hard. The world's imagination is caught by the brutal senseless[ness] of the apparent criminal who slays his kind old mistress" 3:57
Side two
1. "John was hardly more than a bewildered observer at his own trial, not being allowed to say more than a few words. The tides of fate wash him to the condemned cell where he waits three sad weeks for his last night on earth" 7:32
2. "When it comes, he cannot sleep, but when he does, a strange, prophetic dream comes to him, and helps him to bear the strain of his next day's ordeal as scaffold and its crew try in vain three times to take his life" 13:20
ee in its entirety on both their Winter Tour and at the Cropredy Festival in August. The performance was released as a CD & digital download in 2012. Personnel: Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Ric Sanders, Chris Leslie, Gerry Conway
Fairport Convention Band Members / Musicians
Simon Nicol – vocals, guitar, dulcimer (12)
Dave Mattacks – drums, electric piano (12), harmonium (6,7)
Dave Swarbrick – vocals, fiddle, mandolin
Dave Pegg – vocals, bass, mandolin
on 16 and 17 (without Simon Nicol):
Trevor Lucas - rhythm guitar
Jerry Donahue - lead guitar
Sandy Denny – vocals on "Breakfast in Mayfair"
"Babbacombe" Lee is a 1971 album by British folk rock group Fairport Convention, which tells the life story of John Babbacombe Lee, a Victorian-era alleged murderer who was condemned to death but reprieved after the gallows failed on three occasions to work properly. After the commercial and chart success of its predecessor, Angel Delight, the album sold disappointingly, though it was critically acclaimed, and is regarded by the authors of The Electric Muse (1975) as the first "folk rock opera". It was the band's seventh album since their debut in 1968.
