The Strawbs – Lady Fuchsia

28th July 2022 · 1970s, 1973, Music

When I was 14, before Bowie and Bolan, Slade and Sweet, I was a big fan of an English group called The Strawbs. I haven’t listened to them in years.

They started out as a folk group with Sandy Denny singing, and became a folk-rock band when she left.

But I only discovered them when they shed most of the folk trappings and became a more conventional rock band.
That followed the introduction of Dave Lambert to join Dave Cousins in the band in 1972, and their album Bursting At The Seams.

I played it so much that even now, having not heard it for decades, I can remember almost every note and word.

They were a band of two halves – the two Daves on guitar, with a rhythm section of Richard Hudson and John Ford (who also wrote songs and sang).

The fifth member was Blue Weaver – a replacement for Rick Wakeman when he left to join Yes – whose mellotron created a proggy undercurrent to the duelling guitars and mellow harmonies.

I actually find it hard to pick a track today – but easy not to choose Hudson-Ford’s reprehensible attack on organised labour, Part Of The Union.

Keir Starmer would probably pick it as one of his Desert Island Discs.