TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Judy, I know it's straining your brain cells and we have chatted briefly about this topic but........
Could you tell us some more about this clip of film of 3 Fairport songs for French TV?
I presume that it was filmed around early '68, but how did Joe Boyd arrange this performance when you weren't performing on TV in Britain and anything else of interest/amusement of the trip to France?
How was your French whilst Mr Smooth Presenter rolled out the 'prose peuple'.

Thanks,
Neil

Small point: it was BOUTON ROUGE.....
Ian Maun it was (fluent francaise) who liberated a copy of the tape from the French National TV Archive. What a shame the BBC didn't have the same obligation to keep everything they broadcast reather than re-using videotape. If Ian's lurking out there somewhere he could tell you more...

Strewth....
I must have been subliminally trying to encourage American Civil war enthusiasts to join Talkawhile.
Apologies - but I don't think I can change the subject title now.

Neil

Barry says:  I can!  :)

I was idly chatting to Ian Maun one day, I think he was interviewing me for 'The Ledge' and I casually mentioned that we had performed for this French TV programme.
When his jaw had stopped dropping on the floor, he set about trying to locate it. It took a lot of persistence and red tape-cutting on his part before he finally got hold of a copy and permission to use it. The original copy he gave me was in black and white. And to this day I am not sure how it has managed to end up in colour on the Richard documentary, because I thought he had only been given limited permissions. However someone else must have sorted it out I expect.

It was part of a little mini tourette thing. We started off in Paris. I know it was my first visit there, not sure about the others. I loved Paris the moment I set foot in it and have loved it ever since.We turned up a bit late for the recording due to the fact that none of us spoke French. M. le host was just sooooooo charming. His broken Engilsh was well......just......

Somehow we manged but that would explain the 'We're so cool' looks. Actually 'I haven't the foggiest idea what we are supposed to do, so we'll do this and hope it's right'! And I had to take my glasses off. Blind as a bat!

The rest of the show ( apart from the Brian Auger/Julie Driscoll bit) is totally and to this day incomprehensible. Nobody knows what it's on about!
The next day was Switzerland and the Montreux festival. I seem to remember that we stopped off in a couple of Swiss cafes trying to tune the TV to catch our performance. needless to say., with the Alps between Switzerland and France we were unsuccessful
I seem to remember some cross people in those cafes I wonder why.

Hmmm I'd better save this bit and put it in my memoirs.......... ;D

Jude

I don't know who you are Barry (a moderator of the church of talkawhile?) but you're a wiz - thanks for wiping away my blushes.

And Judy.......]"Hmmm I'd better save this bit and put it in my memoirs........."........well, 'true word-spoken-jest' - Do it!

Getting into the swing of Talkawhile,
Neil

Just an 'umble servant, Neil (And I'll moderate anyone who gets cheeky  ;))

I'll add my supoort to that - I'd love to read the Judy Dyble Memoirs - go on Jude - give it a go!  :D

I'll buy a copy Jude.. go on...

Amy ::) :)

Jude,

My copy is black and white as well.  Of course, the copy Fairport used for ALL COMES ROUND AGAIN (TIme Will Show The Wiser) was the B&W too.

During the jam for Reno, Nevada, I noticed your and Iain's withdraw and return for vocals had a very stoic (dramatic) air about them.  Was this intentional (practiced  ;))?  I would guess it must have been kind of awkard for you both during these interludes.  Was there ever any talk of setting up a card table so you could play poker or a game of checkers during the 'down time'?

No Wiley, it was just what we did, withdraw to the side while Richard went off to visit the angels.

This was when I used to disappear to the edge of the stage and knit.

Ahem. Very badly. Eiffel Towers and dishcloths.Too cool. 8)

On that video I had to pick my way very carefully.

 No glasses.

Blind as a bat but no sonar and trailing wires everywhere.

The relief when I made it back to the microphone in one piece was terrific. Phew!

So what you all may have thought was total coolness was actually 'frozen with fear'

Jude ;D ;D

Did RT ever get upset with your legendatry knitting during his solos? - guitarists often seem to have very fragile egos...

No. Never. More than likely it was his idea....(no probably not) but I actually don't remember any of us having fragile egos. The music was the thing and whatever was played on a particular night at a particular place was more than likely to leave the whole band open mouthed with wonder

As far as I was aware, when something was right evryone smiled because it was just so right. I don't think there were any competitive elements.

Sure things didn't go right sometimes but it wasn't the end of the world. Practicing would be done on your own or with others until it was  good.

Remember these are only my personal memories. Others may remember them differently.

Jude

I personally would love a FC DVD that contained all odd bits of footage of the music. It all comes round is great, but I truley would like a music only dvd. With lots of juicy footage.  Is there any footage of Lord Marlborough or bonny black hare?  The footage that Polly came from is amazing.  I would buy as many volumes as they have footage of.  One for every era would be perfect.

ps Did they colorize the 68 footage or was it origianlly shot in colour?

I don't know. I assume it was shot in colour because of all the 'groovy' psychedelic titles which look a bit lost in black and white. And the colours of the clothes were right.

Jude

Back to the knitting, Jude.

Have you still got any of the stuff that you created on stage?  I would think that these articles would qualify as authentic rock-n-roll memorabilia!  I could see something like a sock on display at a Hard Rock Cafe:  "Knitted During EAST/WEST jam in Blackpool, November '67".

You see? If only I'd known.............

Sadly my knitting (like my sewing) leaves so much to be desired... everything falls to pieces after a few days.

On the other hand you never know what will turn up in the old filing cabinet..

Jude

 :) Hi. Jude forwarded me the queries about the Bouton Rouge film, and I saw Simon's message on the board. Well, the Bouton Rouge thing goes back to 1985. I was working on the Fairport Repertoire for The Ledge, trying to work out a complete listing of all the numbers that the band had done over the years. I went up to visit Jude one day and she very kindly lent me her scrapbook of cuttings from the early years. I followed up an article from the Weekly Herald about Fairport's mini-Continental tour of 1968. This reported their TV début on a Bouton Rouge. I located the French TV archives in Paris and wrote them a letter in my best French. Sure enough, back came an answer.'Yes, we have got a tape of Fairport playing on Bouton Rouge, in colour, and no, you can't have it!'  Well, I thought that was that and the letter went into the archive files.

Some months later, Paul Kovit came over from the States to make his video 'It All Comes Round Again' for Island. He was staying next door to Simon Nicol, and Simon mentioned to him that I knew about this film. By this time I was living in Devon, and one evening I got a phone call from Simon asking if I could help Paul. Well, we were like two small boys at Christmas in our enthusiasm to get the film out of the archives! I phoned France time and time time again trying to persuade them to release the film to us. I had many conversations with a lady whom Paul and I dubbed Madame X who seemed to think that the archives were her personal property . We had the permission of all the original band members and Martin Lamble's parents to use the film for the video. Their letters were duly sent off, together with a request from Island's legal department. Weeks went by.

Then, one sunny Friday morning (I remember it well) the postman delivered a package just as I was setting off for a work. In a flash, work was forgotten and I put the cassette in the video machine. On came some coloured test bands, and then, disappointingly, the black-and-white intro to Bouton Rouge. So the original letter was wrong. Never mind. What followed was exquisite. The first number up was Morning Glory, still unreleased on video, but now on the re-released first Fairport album. Richard's solo had the hairs on the back of my neck rising! I had the weird sensation of knowing that nobody had ever heard this since 1968. This was followed by Time Will Show The Wiser and Reno, Nevada.

The French wanted telephone-number sums to reproduce one number for the video, but they eventually let us use Time Will Show The Wiser from the cassette that we had. They didn't tell us that it was, in fact, in colour, and let us go on believing that they'd made a mistake in their original letter. It was only when Paul Bernays produced his BBC 4 documentary on Richard Thompson, that we got a glimpse of the true glory of a fringed and paisleyed Fairport in full colour!

The whole programme is on the French tape and includes a barber with ambitions to be a pop singer, and an article about a racing driver. Second only to Fairport musically, there's Brian Auger and the Trinity with Julie Driscoll, doing a very raunchy and sweaty live session in a club. This wheel's really on fire!!!

All the band members got a copy of the video, but it's never been commercially released. Martin Lamble's parents were particularly appreciative, as Martin was very camera-shy and they had no pictures of him in Fairport. To have a film of him was particularly moving.

Somewhere in the French TV archives is a full colour version of all three songs. What would I give to have Morning Glory, with that solo, but in glorious colour!

Ian Maun

Wow , very nice explanation of the events. I would love a color copy. I think all old FC videos should be on a dvd!!!!!

I suppose you have addressed this already, but french TV is the SECAM standard, which, when viewed on VHS, I believe comes up as black and white. Have you tried viewing the tape on a multi-standard video? If so, you may find that it's colour after all.

Don't get your hopes up as I may be very wrong, but it's worth a try.

Wouldn't we all?..... ;D


Good point Andy - if it is the copy sent from France.
Would this still be the case if copied on a non-French video copier?.... ???

If the copier is PAL, then what you get is PAL's understanding of SECAM. A multi-standard commercial copier costs a lot of money, there are very few about these days. Most french tv equipment understands PAL and NTSC these days, but not in 1968.

An aussie mate of mine in the US is an expert in this and I'll email him when he's likely to be up.