Fairport Convention
BABBACOMBE LEE
A&M SP4333
At eight o'clock on the morning of the eighteenth of December 1907 the iron gates of prison opened, and out into the light of day stepped two middle aged men.
One of them was an official in civilian clothes. He bore the hallmarks of drill and discipline. The other man ...
The other man! There was something strange about him. He looked hunted and cowed, like a creature crushed and broken. He seemed to hang back as if he were afraid of the light of day. He appeared to draw no happy inspiration from God's sunshine. He fumbled at his overcoat pockets as if the very possession of a pocket was a new sensation. He trod gingerly, as if the earth concealed a pitfall ...
Away they went by cab and rail to Newton Abbot. There the two men walked to the police station, where the official announced he was a warder from Portland Convict Prison in charge of John Lee, convict, on ticket-of-leave.
John Lee handed his ticket to the police officer, who read it.
What was it that made that policeman start as he read? What was it that made him look so curiously at the tall, thin, clean-shaven elderly man before him?
It was this. Certain particulars on the ticket showed that on Feb. 4, 1885, the bearer was sentenced tto death at Exeter Assizes for murder at Babbacombe. The man was "Babbacombe" Lee!
"Babbacombe" Lee was on his way to spend Christmas with his aged mother. John Lee, the man they could not hang, the man under whose feet the grim mechanism of the scaffold three times mysteriously failed in its appointed work.
The story of his life's ordeal John Lee himself will tell. It is the story of one who, rightly or wrongly, was doomed in the flush of manhood to a torture more fiendish than the human mind, unaided by the Demon of Circumstance, could have devised. It is the story of a man dangled in the jaws of death, and hurried thence to a living tomb whose terrors make even death seem merciful.
From this terrible ordeal John Lee emerges with the cry "I am innocent" still on his lips. And who that has suffered will not listen?
SIDE ONE
1) John's reflections on his boyhood, his introduction to Miss Keyes and The Glen, his restlessness and his struggles with his family, finally successful, to join the Navy.
2) This was the happiest period of his life. All looked set fair for a career until he was stricken with sickness and invalided out of his chosen niche in life. Reluctant and unhappily he turned to a number of menial occupations and finally returned to the services of Miss Keyes.
3) Tragedy now strikes hard. The world's imagination is caught by the brutal senselessness of the apparent criminal who slays his kind old mistress.
SIDE TWO
4) John was hardly more than a bewildered observer at his own trial, not being allowed to say more than a few words. The tides of fate wash him to the condemned cell where he waits three sad weeks for his last night on earth.
5) When it comes, he cannot sleep, but when he does a strange prophetic dream comes to him and helps him bear the strain of his next day's ordeal as scaffold and its crew try in vain three times to take his life.
Personnel:
Simon Nicol: Guitar & dulcimer/ Dave Mattacks: Drums & electric piano/ Dave Swarbrick: fiddle & mandolin/ Dave Pegg: Bass, mandolin
All compositions by Fairport Convention except "The Sailor's Alphabet" for which, thanks to Bert Lloyd. Thanks to Swarb from the rest of the group for his enthusiasm which kept the ship afloat. All selections published by UFO Music, Inc. (BMI).
Recorded at Sound Techniques LTD. Engineered by John "Mildenhall" Wood.
Produced by John M. Wood and Simon Nicol. Album Design: Roberta Nicol.
Front cover photograph shows John Lee and his Old Mother.
Entered the Billboard Top 200 on March 25, 1972, peaked at # 195 and charted for 3 weeks (acc. to Whiburn's "Top Pop Albums").
Reissued on CD by Island Records (IMCD 153).
JB
BABBACOMBE LEE
A&M SP4333
At eight o'clock on the morning of the eighteenth of December 1907 the iron gates of prison opened, and out into the light of day stepped two middle aged men.
One of them was an official in civilian clothes. He bore the hallmarks of drill and discipline. The other man ...
The other man! There was something strange about him. He looked hunted and cowed, like a creature crushed and broken. He seemed to hang back as if he were afraid of the light of day. He appeared to draw no happy inspiration from God's sunshine. He fumbled at his overcoat pockets as if the very possession of a pocket was a new sensation. He trod gingerly, as if the earth concealed a pitfall ...
Away they went by cab and rail to Newton Abbot. There the two men walked to the police station, where the official announced he was a warder from Portland Convict Prison in charge of John Lee, convict, on ticket-of-leave.
John Lee handed his ticket to the police officer, who read it.
What was it that made that policeman start as he read? What was it that made him look so curiously at the tall, thin, clean-shaven elderly man before him?
It was this. Certain particulars on the ticket showed that on Feb. 4, 1885, the bearer was sentenced tto death at Exeter Assizes for murder at Babbacombe. The man was "Babbacombe" Lee!
"Babbacombe" Lee was on his way to spend Christmas with his aged mother. John Lee, the man they could not hang, the man under whose feet the grim mechanism of the scaffold three times mysteriously failed in its appointed work.
The story of his life's ordeal John Lee himself will tell. It is the story of one who, rightly or wrongly, was doomed in the flush of manhood to a torture more fiendish than the human mind, unaided by the Demon of Circumstance, could have devised. It is the story of a man dangled in the jaws of death, and hurried thence to a living tomb whose terrors make even death seem merciful.
From this terrible ordeal John Lee emerges with the cry "I am innocent" still on his lips. And who that has suffered will not listen?
SIDE ONE
1) John's reflections on his boyhood, his introduction to Miss Keyes and The Glen, his restlessness and his struggles with his family, finally successful, to join the Navy.
2) This was the happiest period of his life. All looked set fair for a career until he was stricken with sickness and invalided out of his chosen niche in life. Reluctant and unhappily he turned to a number of menial occupations and finally returned to the services of Miss Keyes.
3) Tragedy now strikes hard. The world's imagination is caught by the brutal senselessness of the apparent criminal who slays his kind old mistress.
SIDE TWO
4) John was hardly more than a bewildered observer at his own trial, not being allowed to say more than a few words. The tides of fate wash him to the condemned cell where he waits three sad weeks for his last night on earth.
5) When it comes, he cannot sleep, but when he does a strange prophetic dream comes to him and helps him bear the strain of his next day's ordeal as scaffold and its crew try in vain three times to take his life.
Personnel:
Simon Nicol: Guitar & dulcimer/ Dave Mattacks: Drums & electric piano/ Dave Swarbrick: fiddle & mandolin/ Dave Pegg: Bass, mandolin
All compositions by Fairport Convention except "The Sailor's Alphabet" for which, thanks to Bert Lloyd. Thanks to Swarb from the rest of the group for his enthusiasm which kept the ship afloat. All selections published by UFO Music, Inc. (BMI).
Recorded at Sound Techniques LTD. Engineered by John "Mildenhall" Wood.
Produced by John M. Wood and Simon Nicol. Album Design: Roberta Nicol.
Front cover photograph shows John Lee and his Old Mother.
Entered the Billboard Top 200 on March 25, 1972, peaked at # 195 and charted for 3 weeks (acc. to Whiburn's "Top Pop Albums").
Reissued on CD by Island Records (IMCD 153).
JB
