The catalyst for Fairports' transmutation from Dylan covers band to founders of English folk rock, Denny brought to the group a soaring voice and the riches of traditional song. Nottamun Town and A Sailor's Life appeared in 1968, along with Denny's own Who Knows Where the Time Goes, before 1969's visionary Liege & Lief remade folk for a new generation.
Lush, melodic and led by Denny's dramatic vocals, Liege & Lief captured the eeriness of antique ballads such as Reynardine and renewed the quest for a Blakean Albion on Come All Ye. Denny soon left for Fotheringay and a solo career, en route duetting memorably with Robert Plant on The Battle of Evermore, Led Zeppelin's Tolkien tribute. Zep were just one act influenced by Liege & Lief; the album became the template for electric folkies onwards, from Steeleye Span to Oysterband to Seth Lakeman. As important as its stylistic tics – Richard Thompson's rolling guitar lines, Dave Swarbrick's fiddle – was that it established rock as belonging to the country as well as the city. Fairport mutated into the noble institution it remains; Denny, dead at 31, has proved irreplaceable.
• This article was amended on 16 June 2011. The original incorrectly called the album Liege & Leaf. This has been corrected.
