The Moodies would drop in. Kenny Everett would be there. David Hamilton. And Timon – a young folky singer the Moodies were going to sign. Dave’s ever-suffering missus would slave away without complaint producing drinks and meals and mopping up the mess that a gang of guys can leave in their wake. The Dalmatian puppy would pee all over the place and Dave’s golden-headed little daughter would watch us all through big innocent eyes, mystified by the antics of grown men, clapping along to the songs. They were wonderful days and nights. One night we all went home comforted that our hours of smoky deliberation had give us our newname – Fairfield Parlour Farm. In the cold light of dawn in various parts of the metropolis – Acton, Southall, Rayners Lane – we awoke to the horror of that cumbersome cognomen. We hastily dropped the farm.”
Building on the established influences of Dylan (“The undefeated genius of the 20th century. Sit on your own in a darkened room and listen, for instance, to ‘Visions Of Johanna’ – it’s as close to a religious experience as you will ever get”), The Bee Gees (“Their album Horizontal was a shot in my arm – a shock that ran down that limbto my hand and to the pen in that hand”) and Donovan (“Hismagical and near-perfect Fairytale album was rarely off my turntable, pop-pickers”), Daltrey upped the lyrical ante, adding a dash of literary allusion andmore sophisticated wordplay than we’d heard on the two Kaleidoscope albums.
“It was my brother who introduced me to great writers like John Steinbeck and Jack Kerouac. I was a voracious reader, moving on to Hemingway and Faulkner and eventually to F Scott Fitzgerald. So when you’re writing yourself, all these old guys are tapping you on the shoulder trying to
get their bit in. They breathe down your neck, whispering words in your ears. I am in no way inflating what little talent I have but, very occasionally, I will surprise even myself by a couplet. I say this only to illustrate that songwriting is an odd game. Some songs are hard work whilst others come to you from the ether, almost ready written. A line will literally pop into your mind fully formed, followed by another, and another. I’mhumbled by it.”
The idyllic surroundings of Symonds’ Hampton Court abode also proved to be a galvanising force. “When we were writing the songs for From Home To Home we were in a good place in our heads and in reality. The whole atmosphere at Dave’s place down by the river was conducive to writing thoughtful, introspective songs. We became quite insular, living in our own bucolic world of days in the sun-dappled garden, paddling in the stream, singing in the warm shadows of the house as new days dawned. And the feedback from playing these songs at midnight in the candle-lit house to all those people who would drop by, convinced us that we were on the right track. By this time we were not listening to other bands, consciously avoiding the bear-trap of ending up sounding like someone else. I’ll leave it to the listener to decide if that was achieved.”
The group debuted live as Fairfield Parlour at Brunel University in November, presumably showcasing the new material that was beginning to pile up. Peter explains the writing process. “From the very beginning of our collaboration, Ed and I always wrote in the same way: I wrote the words, passed them to Ed, he wrote the music. We’d get together at his folks’ house in Acton, crack open a bottle of cheap wine, and hone the songs into
shape. Eventually, inebriated by the wine and the exhilaration of having written some new songs, we would fall into the street, stagger off to the local Chinese and have a meal. We followed this same routine for years, with wine as the glue that held it all together – or the reason it all fell apart!”
Ahhh, the wine. Appropriately, it was ‘Bordeaux Rosé’ that was selected as Fairfield Parlour’s first release. The song – along with future album highlight ‘I Will Always Feel The Same’ – had been presented to Irish showband The Freshmen as a possible single for them but Symonds liked it so much he insisted his boys record it themselves. Despite not having any takers for their recordings, the band entered Morgan Studios in Willesden, North West London on November 19th, and 10 days later – give or take a couple of late night mixing sessions at Olympic Studio in Barnes, South West London – emerged with the tapes that would make up From Home To Home. In a none-more- ironic twist of fate, the band then re-signed with Phillips – Fontana’s parent label.
FAIRFIELD PARLOUR From Home To Home (Vertigo 6360 001, 14th August 1970)
Aries/In My Box/By Your Bedside/Soldier Of The Flesh/I Will Always Feel The Same/ Free/Emily/ Chalk On The Wall/ Glorious House Of Arthur/ Monkey/Sunnyside Circus/The Drummer Boy Of Shiloh
“When Dave became our manager, his first task was to barge through those polished doors at Stanhope Place and demand our release from our contract. He listened when the Philips suits said that they didn’t want us to leave, but he recognised the inequality of our deal and insisted that if we stayed the contract would be renegotiated. Dave insisted on a tape-lease deal. We would go away and make the recordings in our own time, in our own choice of studios. We would lease the recordings to the company for five years. After that, all ownership rights reverted to the band. They agreed. Furthermore, they were introducing a new label, Vertigo, for their progressive acts and would we like to
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