Making Altar-ations

It’s at least a little ironic that veteran British folk group Fairport Convention released its first “unplugged” album years after it became fashionable to do so. But if Fairport Convention, which performs Friday at the Coach House, seems an obvious and belated choice to undergo an acoustic transformation, the results on the recently released “Old New Borrowed Blue” are choice at any vintage.

On the new album, chops are flashed, tales are spun and harmonies are woven into a cohesive and rewarding listen. It’s not that so much has changed from the band’s electric “Jewel in the Crown” album last year or from other releases. They all utilize the same basic musical formula, only with a modicum of amplification and technology. But with “Old New Borrowed Blue,” there is a sense that Fairport Convention has come home.

“This is a diversion really, as opposed to a [permanent direction] for the band,” said singer and guitarist Simon Nicol in a recent phone interview from England. “It doesn’t represent a full change of activity. The five-piece electric thing is what we really want to do, but it’s great to have this other manifestation. We’re going about our business and getting into smaller places and markets like Australia, where we haven’t been for 10 years. The full band is probably too top-heavy to play there.”

The full band Nicol refers to includes himself, guitarist-pianist Martin Allcock, violinist Ric Sanders, bassist Dave Pegg and drummer Dave Mattacks. All members have been known to noodle on a variety of other instruments as well as sing backup. For its acoustic shows, Fairport forgoes the rhythm section.

“The interesting angle about having two running lineups is that they don’t tread on one another’s toes,” Nicol said. “Sometimes the material crosses over from one repertoire to the other; sometimes it’s specific and nontransferable.”

Nicol is the sole original member of the group, which formed in 1967 and has undergone a plethora of personnel changes over the years. But despite being teasingly referred to for a time as Fairport Confusion, the lineup has been stable since 1985, when Allcock and Sanders joined. Mattocks and Pegg have been aboard since 1969.

“People still call it ‘the new lineup,’ but we’ve been together longer than the Beatles--although we really haven’t impacted the music business quite as dramatically,” Nicol said. “We’ve been able to go through changes without changing the baby with the bathwater. . . . We really do have a long-lived band here that happens to have a lot of history as well.”

The two most famous alumni of Fairport are Richard Thompson, who left the group in 1970 and has since forged a small-but-devoted following for his solo work, and Sandy Denny, well-known in the U.K. for her concurrent work with Fairport and as a solo artist. Denny died in 1978 after a fall down a flight of stairs.

To still be associated with Thompson and Denny is “not a problem in the slightest,” Nicol said. “It’s a big joy to have worked with those people. I’d love to still be working with Sandy. . . .

“I played on Richard’s last album; we’re still friends; we’ll do more projects together down the line. I think he, if anybody, has suffered from the fact that he’s still referred to as ‘ex-Fairport Convention.’ To him, it must be a millstone around the neck.”

Fairport’s early sound was an experimental product of its time. The Celtic folk influences were manifest in those days but were hybridized with such influences, according to Nicol, as the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Jefferson Airplane, Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and the Band.

“It was all very Californian, really, for a bunch of middle-class kids from North London,” said Nicol, 46.

Even as the band has settled into a more traditional mode over time, Nicol said: “We’re not here to bang a drum for traditional folk music and say, ‘You must listen to this; this is what must be bowed down to.’

“I suppose when we started we were kids; the sky was the limit; anything was possible. Now that we’re sort of longer in tooth, we look at it as more--not a niche market, that’s unfair--but we’ve discovered what we’re good at, and we’re concentrating on that.”

Next year brings Fairport Convention’s 30th anniversary, and the band plans to do it up in style.

“We’re going to have a big festival in Oxfordshire to sort of highlight our years,” Nicol said.

“We’ve got to get ourselves a good celebratory show for that. . . . We also need to get a new record together featuring the five-piece band, so as soon as we get back from the States, we’ll be hats-down busy working for all of that. Other than that, the same rules as always apply--you go out onstage and have a great time and send the audience away happy.”

* Who: Fairport Convention.

* When: 8 p.m. Friday, with Common Ground and Tom Long opening.

* Where: The Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano.

* Whereabouts: Exit Interstate 5 at Camino Capistrano and go left. The Coach House is in the Esplanade Plaza, on the right.

* Wherewithal: $15-$17.

* Where to call: (714) 496-8930.