According the Jim Bickhart’s liner notes forthe LP, “Angel Delight,” Fairport Convention formed in 1966 as the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra, and when it came time to make records, they decided they needed a catchier name. Candidates included the likes of “Electric Rutubaga,” but they finally settled on using the name of the Muswell Hill house they were living in in “Fairport.”
They are widely regarded as the most important single group in the English folk rock movement. Their seminal album Liege and Lief is generally considered to have launched the electric folk or English folk rock movement, which provided a distinctively English identity to rock music and helped awaken much wider interest in traditional music in general.
Fairport Convention on Folk Britannia
