The art of the American record label

It was during those endless trawls up and down the motorway spine of the United Kingdom that Fairport came up with the title of their third album. Unhalfbricking is not the name of some traditional rural custom like 'beating the bounds', but a word which Sandy made up and contributed to a word game called Ghosts which the group played in the back of their van.

The couple featured on the cover of Unhalfbricking are Sandy Denny's parents [above], photographed in the garden of their Wimbledon home while the group take their tea in the background. Fairport's American label A & M considered the image too weird for a potential US audience and replaced the offending shot with a troupe of performing elephants [below].

Quote is from Patrick Humphries' biography of Fairport Convention's Richard Thompson. More on Richard Thompson in I am not from east or west. Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Also on Facebook and Twitter.