Full House by Fairport Convention

Full House, Fairport Convention's fifth album, came out on Island in July 1970 with Joe Boyd producing, and it's the first Fairport record with no woman at the microphone. Sandy Denny had gone off to form Fotheringay, founder Ashley Hutchings had left for Steeleye Span, and new bassist Dave Pegg, who works jigs and reels right into his bass lines, joined guitarists Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol, fiddler Dave Swarbrick and drummer Dave Mattacks.

Picking up where Liege & Lief left off, they keep rewiring traditional tunes, stitching them into the galloping medleys "Dirty Linen" and "Flatback Caper", with Swarbrick's fiddle and the guitars sawing and tangling like a ceilidh in a thunderstorm. The centerpiece is the nine-minute "Sloth", which stayed in their live set for years. Thompson yanked "Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman" at the last minute, unhappy with his own vocal, and was gone for a solo career early the next year.

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