Fairport Cropredy Convention Dave Swarbrick 2010 Sir Patrick Spens

I made this shaky and imperfect video last night at Fairport Cropredy Convention, where legendary fiddler Dave Swarbrick made an unsceduled appearance and to the surprise of the band led a rendition of his great arrangement of Sir Patrick Spens, a favourite Fairport song of mine. Please listen right to the end for relevant comments from the stage!

Not perhaps his career best performance, but as Simon Nichol and earlier on Richard Digance said about our friends who can't be with us today, every year you never know if it will be your last Cropredy and more so for some than others. We are lucky to have Dave 'The Swarb' still with us let alone playing half as well as he still can, he has a heart/lung transplant and has been stone deaf for years. No other musician can claim to have had a greater influence on the British and indeed transatlantic folk rock scene over the last half century. Long live, Dave Swarbrick, a true national treasure!

PS Dave Swarbrick's original lungs were buggered by SMOKING. On his behalf, and I know he feels strongly about this as I saw a letter he wrote to the Telegraph about it, I say if you smoke, stop, if you don't, don't start!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Dave
• Swarbrick
• Fairport
• Convention
• Cropredy
• Sir
• Patrick
• Spens
• violin
• fiddle
• folk
• rock
• electric
• Simon
• Nichol
• DPegg

[axiomatic272]

GIZMOBLOGGS has posted a better film of this performance, he must have been nearer the stage and abetter camera. Do have a look. Sorry I can't work out how to post a link but its easy to find search youtube on Dave Swarbrick Sir Patrick Spens.

[TheManuey1]

Shaky, flag in front of the screen! Doesn't matter! Captures the spirit of Cropredy, great memories. Love Swarb forever!

[Slackmaster9]

@axiomatic272  Found it... thanks for the tip!!!

[farnishk]

Don't care how shaky it was - the folk comes pouring out, Swarb sings with gusto and Chris Leslie holds it all together with the mando; thanks for capturing.