Radio programme about Sandy Denny

[A Lark Ascending]

WEDNESDAY 23rd APRIL

A special show to commemorate Sandy Denny, who died 25 years ago this week. As well as Sandy's music, the show will feature reminiscences from some of Sandy's friends and colleagues including Richard Thompson, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Pegg, Simon Nicol and producer Joe Boyd.

Can be heard at 7.00 p.m. UK time...or at your discretion for the following week. The Beeb now archives it's programmes for latter listening, up to a week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/folk/mike_hard...ing/index.shtml

[BFrank]

Great!

Thanks for the heads-up, Bev.

[Simon Weil]

Yeah, she fell down stairs at home. Tragic. Not made any less so by the fact she'd just had her first child.

"Most accidents occur in the home". Not a "rock death", anyhow.

I think her Fairport stuff is the best, at least in terms of consistency. All her solo records are worthwhile, but don't overall reach the level of, say, Unhalfbricking. I've got the box set (LP version) of her stuff - and I think that's more satisfactory than any of her individual records - contains music from all sorts of places (incl. Fairport natch).

I remember being torn up about her death.

Simon Weil

[A Lark Ascending]

If you read Clinton Heylin's bio you come across a very insecure and disturbed person. Her marriage with Trevor Lucas was in trouble at the time and he'd just taken off to Australia with their daughter.

I'd qualify Simon's advice by recommending 'The North Star Grassman and the Ravens' and the 'Fotheringay' albums as beautiful examples of Denny's talent . There are some superb songs and performances on those two(I've been playing them for 30 odd years with no loss of affection). 'Sandy' also is very enjoyable but is more produced, something which spoils her final two discs for me. Had she lived I fear she would have become a much more mainstream performer. She seemed to become swamped in orchestras and a nostalgia for 30s 'light programme' music.

Also her voice hardened from about 1972 on. Alot of the live material has her not always in tune and a million miles away from the fresh voiced singer of Unhalfbricking, Liege and Lief or Fotheringay.

[Simon Weil]

I bought "North Star Grassman' when it came out. It's a dark record, in my opinion - kind of unrelenting and monochromatic in that way, and for that reason flawed. I've never owned Fotheringway, though I've heard it. I think it's a good record, though not quite up to the best of Fairport. Strictly speaking Fotheringway was a group (but this is nit-picking). I do think the last two Sandy records are "produced", but for me there's something in them to bring them up to more or less the same level as her other records. I agree with Bev that there was something good in all her stuff. I did see her live (with kind of folk-rock backing) in her last year - and she still had that voice (also in my opinion), so that whatever her production style, it still seemed like the core of her sensibility remained untouched. God knows how she'd have dealt with the 80s though.

Actually the record I like of hers the best is more or less a pure folk record which came out on Saga records (recorded 1967) and cost me 60p. I don't know easily available it is on CD.

I don't know that I'd ever describe her as fresh-voiced. There is tremendous, unrestrained melancholy power on some of the stuff on the Saga record - kind of breathtaking and majestic on some of it.

I think freshness is only part of it. She could still sing later on.

Simon Weil

P.S. I now see that Amazon.co.uk has the Saga record under the title "The Original Sandy Denny " on Mooncrest.

Edited April 22, 2003 by Simon Weil

[A Lark Ascending]

I've said this somewhere else but 'Northstar', 'Fotheringay' and 'Full House' (and a number of other releases of around that period) have a production that is ideal for my listening. Very spare, uncluttered.

I suppose the bleakness of Northstar very much appeals to me. I was reading Richard Thompson only yesterday talking about how in his early songwriting he felt uncomfortable revealing true feelings and so hid his early songs in code; I hear the same thing in 'Northstar.' The thing is I prefer the uncrackable code of that record and, say, 'Henry the Human Fly.' I think it helps evoke a very strange and mysterious place that very few records of the time (or since) enterred. That same place that much traditional folk song takes you, largely because key verses of song have been lost or mixed with other songs to create a tale which never quite makes sense. Like 'Tam Lin'!

I'm probably being a bit hard on her later voice. Surviving performers get to choose what is released. The various live discs that have come out have had to make do with what was there, not necessarily her at her best. I saw her twice - once with a very small band in late 1973 and once during her second period with Fairport in '74. Both were wonderful concerts.

By fresh-voiced I suppose I mean youthful. Her voice changed colour around '72. Had she been more stable, had she possessed the focus of a Thompson or a Hutchings I have no doubt she would have produced even more startling music. She just seems to me to have got a bit lost and retreated into nostalgia.

We shouldn't overlook her marvellous performance on 'The Battle of Evermore' on Led Zeppelin IV.

[BFrank]

Bev - Believe it or not, I saw the same two tours that you did.

Denny "solo" tour in LA, 2/18/1972 and with Fairport in Berkeley, 11/10/1974. I remember enjoying both, of course.

I'll add my support for Fotheringay being a great album. "The Way I Feel" is something special in my opinion. I could listen to it every day.

I enjoy "Northstar", too, but it is a much more subdued album.

Edited April 22, 2003 by BFrank

[A Lark Ascending]

The Denny I saw was a bit later - October or November of 1973. It was just as I'd started University and she played the student's union hall.

The Fairport concert was definitely the same tour - again at university. It could have been any time from Oct to early Dec that I saw them. I recall we were also supposed to get Sour Grapes that term - R + L Thompson and Simon Nicol. That one sadly was called off and I had to wait another seven years to see Thompson live for the first time.

Yes, I share your liking for 'The Way I Feel' - I love the way it builds and the harmony vocal between Denny and Lucas; Donahue's guitar is tremendous throughout. My own favourite from the album is 'The Sea', a five star Denny song with a perfect solo from Jerry Donahue. I also love the opening 'Nothing More' which has the same sort of drama as 'The Way I Feel.' There are two lyrically strange but beguiling tunes - 'The Pond and the Stream' and 'Winter Winds' with exquisite medievally interlocking acoustic guitars. And, of course, the 'time stands still' beauty of 'The Banks of the Nile', one of her great traditional interpretations. If the album is weakened it is by the Lucus led numbers but they do provide a contrast.

The CD reissue has two additional tracks (also on the box) which are marvellous. 'Two Weeks Last Summer' (in the 'Winter Winds' mould) and 'Gypsy Davy' (using the slow building, dramatic style).

One other Denny track I adore is 'By the Time It Get's Dark' which can be found on the box set. It's just a demo, has some dodgy lyrics and rhymes but has Sandy at her most innocent sounding in a gorgeously optimistic melody. It's been picked up and recorded by a number of people but seems to collapse under overarrangement. A gem.

[Simon Weil]

Can be heard at 7.00 p.m. UK time

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/folk/mike_hard...ing/index.shtml

The show is actually on (according to both the BBC and my newspaper listings) at 8.00 PM UK time.

That's ca 2hours and 10 minutes after this message goes up.

Simon Weil

[A Lark Ascending]

Sorry. You are quite right Simon.

But tune in at 7.00 anyway. You'll get Nick Barraclough's half ironic approach to current country pop. Always entertaining.

[Simon Weil]

I just listened to this. Very nice. Thanks, Bev.

Simon Weil

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes, a nice drift down memory lane.

A pity it was read by Mike 'I-speak-your-weight' Harding.

[Stan C]

I'm glad I caught the Sandy Denny radio broadcast. I haven't listened to her music for a long time and it's great to rediscover Sandy Denny.

[BFrank]

"Nothing More" is also a great tune with some very tasty Jerry Donahue. He seems to be a guitarist that got lost in the shuffle. Certainly impressive on this album, for sure.

[A Lark Ascending]

A great guitarist who regularly turns up at the annual Fairport reunions at Cropredy - well, he used to. I've not been for a while.

But he's one of those people who needs to be in someone else's group. I have a couple of solo albums by him and though they are full of clever playing the don't leave much of an impression. He seems to operate from California - plays with a group called the Telecasters with a couple of other semi-famous guitarists.

I think his playing all over Fotheringay is magnificent. He also contributes a stunning counter-line to Thompson on Late November on 'Grassman.' He's also superb on Fairport's 'Nine' album, to my mind the last of their really interesting albums.

In some respects his finest hour on record is his playing on 'Sloth' on the Live album of the mid-70s (I think it's called 'A Moveable Feast' in the States). The way he builds his solo is perfect; and his underplaying of Swarbrick's solo is exemplary.

When I saw the band in '74 Donahue pulled of a spectacular solo on the then unrecorded 'One More Chance.' The subsequent studio release on 'Rising for the Moon', though enjoyable, never quite matched that fire (or, I suspect, length!). [side point: it was interesting hearing RT choose 'Stranger to Himself' off this album as his Sandy favourite; it's always stood out for me from an otherwise unfocussed album).

There's a mid 80s Fairport disc called 'Expletive Deleted' which is all instrumental. Not an essential disc except for the closer - a medley of Shadows era tunes with Donahue and Thompson sparring. I saw them do this at Cropredy and it was electric!

[BFrank]

So, that IS Donahue on "Moveable Feast"! There is no mention of the line-up - only photos on the inside sleeve. I always thought it was a pretty solid live album. Really brutal version of "John The Gun", if I remember correctly.

The group on this album appears to be: Swarbrick, Denny, Donahue, Pegg, Lucas and Mattacks(another unsung great).

Thanks for the heads-up on "Expletive Delighted". I downloaded it from EMusic, but have no liner notes to go with it. Haven't listened to it much yet, either.

[A Lark Ascending]

That is the line up. The five piece without Denny threatened at one stage to be their most stable assembly. Then Sandy joined...and Mattacks left (to be replaced by Bruce Rowland)...and they imploded...and Simon Nicol returned to reform with Swarbrick/Pegg/Rowland.

I recall a wonderful headline from the UK press c. Denny rejoining:

'Fotheringport Confusion!'

[BFrank]

Nice avatar, Bev.

I just realized what it is - "L&L".

[A Lark Ascending]

Every Brit has one of those in their back garden. We always arise at sunrise to worship the mystic spirits in order to bring good fortune each day.

Actually all is explained in 'Ashley Hutchings: The Guv'nor and the Rise of Folk Rock' by Brian Hinton and Geoff Wall:

On the back cover of the vinyl edition of Liege & Lief is a carved wooden totem owned by Dave Swarbrick, impossibly ancient - like a cross between a scarecrow and a human sacrifice, next to the Witchseason logo, and surrounded by a circle of flowers and leaves, a ribbon bow no less. "Dave Swarbrick found that in a churchyard," Ashley explains. "He found it amongst leaves and things, and it was rotting away in some sacking, and it is quite clearly some magical totem of some description. And we thought that it was just very suitable, and as you well know this and Full House are absolutely shot through with magic and mystery, both albums, and so we put it on the album. But Swarb found it."

Edited June 8, 2003 by Bev Stapleton