We did think about giving up for a while after that says

“We did think about giving up for a while after that,” says Thompson. And I thought, `damn it all, I’m never going to get excited about any record ever again’ – and I probably haven’t Maybe that’s a badthing – far too pragmatic. But it knocked the stuffing out of my optimism at that point and I thought, `obviously you have to be successful on your own terms and so we may as well do that’.” In 1969, when he was 20, Fairport Convention came close to spli tting up after the motorway crash that killed Thompson’s girlfriend, Genie Franklin, and their drummer, Martin Lamble. By the end of 1967 they had found a manager and producer, Joe Boyd, and signed a record deal “We weren’t ever very successful,” he says.

“The first record we put out, we were really proud of, our first single And I thought, `this one is going to jump up the charts’ We sold about three copies. When I was 10, she was about 15, and her boyfriends used to come round and play `Peggy Sue’ and stufflike that, so I learnt a few chords, a few Shadows riffs. And I took some classical lessons when I was 11 or 12, which was very useful.”He joined Fairport Convention at the age of 17, when he was still at school. He grew up in north London – Tufnell Park and Archway; his father was a Scottish policeman who had left the Borders and moved south to work for the Met “My family was at least semi-musical,” he says “My father was a keen music fan He liked Scottish music, he liked jazz.

He had some good Django Reinhardt records, Duke Ellington records.”My father played guitar a bit, there was a guitar lying around the house, so I just picked it up I used to get some help from my sister’s boyfriends. “They’ve already failed in that,” he replies, even more dismissively “They’re obviously wasting their time. Hmmmm.”He is more eloquent when talking about the musical influences of his childhood. “It wasn’t my idea.”It’s obviously part of Capitol’s plan to make you famous, I say.