For a musical legend, Simon Nicol is a modest man. Not only does he shun the trappings of fame, he shrugs off any form of compliment.

Yet, for all his self-effacing charm and dry humour, he is an icon of folk-rock.

As a founding member of Fairport Convention he pioneered the electrification of English roots music, paving the way for everything that has followed. Indeed, when it came to choosing a name, they settled on that of Simon’s north London home, where the fledgling stars gathered to play guitar and sing. “I was born in Fairport and, the way things are going, I’ll die in Fairport too,” smiles the man who still fronts the band as its main guitarist and lead singer. I started playing with Ashley [Hutchings] and Richard [Thompson] in 1966 — and we ended up with a band. That’s what people did then. It was like a rite of passage.

“When you’re a kid you don’t have any realistic expectations. You think anything is possible. We were quite pleased to get signed and become professional in six weeks. It was a very steep rise. “We thought we were going to be pop stars. I’m glad we had our half-hour in the sun, but we have never been massive.”

It is a claim disarming in its modesty, even by Simon’s standards. After all, the band’s fourth album, 1969’s Liege & Lief, is regarded as one of the most influential folk records of all time. The first major British folk-rock album, it remained in the charts for 15 weeks.

“It was a slow-burner,” says Simon demurely. “It didn’t blow everyone off the airwaves. But it’s still there. We were famously the least successful, but longest-lasting band on the Island label. We are still waiting for our overnight success.”

Not only is Simon responsible for some of Fairport’s most enduring songs, he also plays a central role in the North Oxfordshire festival which shares the band’s name, and which starts today in the tiny village of Cropredy.

Starting life in 1979 as a farewell concert by Fairport, the festival, like the band, has become a gradual success, now attracting 20,000 people to three days of music. Organised by Simon, bandmate Dave ‘Peggy’ Pegg and director Gareth Williams, the event is officially titled Fairport’s Cropredy Convention, though most people know it simply as ‘Cropredy’ — unless they live in ‘Banburyshire’, where it is still referred to as ‘Fairport’. The band (Simon, Peggy, Ric Sanders, Chris Leslie and Gerry Conway) remain a central feature, opening and closing it — starting today with an acoustic set, and concluding with their traditional three-hour finale on Saturday, ending in the now-customary sing-along to their anthem Meet on the Ledge.

“I have got more and more excited as the moment approaches,” says Simon, who lives in Chipping Norton. “It’s something you never get used to. It’s the linchpin of Fairport’s year, as a band and as individuals, and it doesn’t get any better.”

While Cropredy clings to its traditions, its line-up has become gradually bolder, encompassing acts you perhaps wouldn’t expect to see at what is, at heart, still a folk-rock festival. They include tonight’s headliner, the shock-rocker Alice Cooper, folk-punks Levellers, prog-rock act 10cc, country-rockers Danny & the Champions of the World, classical-crossover act The Mediaeval Bæbes and ’80s star Nik Kershaw.

They are joined by the folkier-sounding Peatbog Faeries, The Dunwells, Martin Barre, Lunasa, BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award winners Greg Russell and Ciaran Algar.

The festival sprang from a farewell show in 1971 — just four years after their first gig, at a church hall in Golders Green, but following by a roller-coaster ride of fame, glamour, multiple line-up changes and tragedy, including a motorway crash in 1969, which killed their drummer Martin Lamble and Thompson’s girlfriend Jeannie Franklyn. Then there was the subsequent death of singer Sandy Denny, after falling down a flight of stairs.

The fact they are still here says a lot about their enduring appeal. “The band punches above its weight by doing this festival,” says Simon. “No one had the faintest idea we’d end up stewarding a festival with 20,000 people over three days.

“It’s no small thing having that many people descend on a village of 600. I can’t imagine the imposition of such an event on a village anywhere else. It started as a village fete, and the support seems to grow. They even named their bell after us!”

He refers to the Fairport Convention Festival Bell, cast with the help of a donation from festival-goers, and now hanging in Cropredy Church. “No other band in the country has a bit of heavy metal like that,” he grins. “I feel like Dr Smug of Smugville! And now all I really want to do is to get on that stage and play.”

  • Fairport’s Cropredy Convention Until Sunday The festival offers three-day, two-day, and Saturday-only tickets at £110, £100 and £75 respectively. Camping pass extra.
  • Visit fairportconvention.com