Dave Swarbrick: It Suits Me Well - The Transatlantic Recordings 1976-1983, 2CD

• From the dawn of the 1960s up until his death earlier this year, Dave Swarbrick was, according to Ashley Hutchings, “the most influential British fiddle player bar none”, whose presence loomed over the English folk scene for many years. His style has been copied or developed by many folk fiddlers both in the UK and around the world.

• Having played with The Ian Campbell Folk Group across the early 1960s, and collaborated with Martin Carthy on several duo albums, Swarb – to use his nickname – joined Fairport Convention and became an integral part of their classic albums such as Liege & Lief, at the vanguard of the late 60s electric folk rock scene. He remained with the Fairports until their dissolution in 1979 while also playing very selectively as a session musician.

• In 1976, Dave struck out on his own with the first of a string of six solo albums indulging his love of traditional music – a style of music his day-job band Fairport Convention had been moving away from at that point – helped by many respected guest musicians. Four of these largely instrumental albums are assembled on this new 2-CD, representing the totality of his solo work for the legendary folk imprint Transatlantic. His first two albums were simply entitled Swarbrick and Swarbrick 2: four tracks appear here for the first time ever on CD.

• After two further LPs for a Scandinavian label, Swarb returned to the Transatlantic fold for Smiddyburn, issued in 1981 on the company’s more contemporary Logo imprint. The fourth album to be included here is Flittin’, funded by Transatlantic but licensed out to a third party label, Spindrift, in 1983. Both albums were recorded in one set of sessions and are notable for featuring between them a clutch of performances by a one-off reunion of the legendary 1970 Full House Fairport line-up: Swarbrick, Richard Thompson, Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Dave Mattacks.

• It Suits Me Well assembles all four albums across two CDs, remastered, with new sleeve-notes by noted folk historian Colin Harper, drawing from contemporaneous Swarbrick interviews.