Sandy Denny

Sandy Denny (6 January 1947 – 21 April 1978), born Alexandra Elene Maclean Denny, was an English singer and songwriter who has been described by Allmusic's Richie Unterberger as "the pre-eminent British folk rock singer".^[1]

Denny is considered a founder of the British folk rock movement and perhaps its most important female singer, songwriter and personality. Over a ten year career Sandy Denny left an extensive legacy and remains influential. She is remembered for her pivotal involvement with the British folk rock scene, where, as a member of Fairport Convention, she moved the band away from west coast American cover versions and into performing traditional material and original compositions.

Denny is also remembered as a composer most notably on her solo albums which represent her claim to be Britain's finest female singer-songwriter, as asserted by the Sunday Express, Uncut and Mojo.^[2] Her composition, "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?", has been covered by numerous artists as diverse as Judy Collins, Nina Simone and Cat Power and is now regarded as a classic. Famous also for her exceptional voice, it has been suggested that her effortless and smooth vocal delivery still sets the standard for many of today's female folk-based singers.^[3][4]

She is also noted for her duet with Robert Plant on the song "The Battle of Evermore" from Led Zeppelin's fourth album released in 1971. She remains to this day the only guest vocalist on a Led Zeppelin album.

Childhood

Denny was born on the 6th of January 1947 at Nelson Hospital, Kingston Road, Merton Park, London and studied classical piano as a child.^[5] Her Scottish grandmother was a singer of traditional songs. At an early age Denny showed an interest in singing, although her strict parents were reluctant to believe there was a living to be made from it. Sandy Denny attended Coombe Girls' School in Kingston upon Thames. After leaving school, she started training as a nurse at the Royal Brompton Hospital^[6].

Early career

Her nursing career proved short-lived. In the meantime she had secured a place on a foundation course at Kingston College of Art, which she took up in September 1965, becoming involved with the folk club on campus. Her contemporaries at the college included guitarist and future member of Pentangle, John Renbourn.^[6] After her first public appearance at the Barge in Kingston-Upon-Thames Denny started working the folk club circuit in the evenings with an American-influenced repertoire, including songs by Tom Paxton, together with traditional folk songs^[6].

Denny made the first of many appearances for the BBC at Cecil Sharp House on 2 December 1966 on the Folk Song Cellar programme where she accompanied herself on two traditional songs; Fhir a Bhata and Green Grow the Laurels. Her earliest professional recordings were made a few months later in mid-1967 for the Saga Records label,^[7] featuring traditional songs and covers of folk contemporaries including her boyfriend of this period, the American singer-songwriter Jackson C. Frank. They were released on the albums Alex Campbell and his Friends and Sandy and Johnny with Johnny Silvo.^[8] These songs were collected on the 1970 album It's Sandy Denny where the tracks from Sandy and Johnny had been re-recorded with more accomplished vocals and guitar playing.^[8] The complete Saga studio recordings were issued on the 2005 compilation Where The Time Goes.

By this time she had abandoned her studies at art college and was devoting herself full-time to music. Whilst performing at The Troubadour folk club, a member of the Strawbs heard her, and in 1967, she was invited to join the band. She recorded one album with them in Denmark which belatedly came out in 1973 as Sandy Denny and the Strawbs All Our Own Work. The album includes an early solo version of her best-known (and widely covered) composition, Who Knows Where the Time Goes^[6]. A tape of that solo version found its way into the hands of American singer Judy Collins, who chose to cover it as the title track of an album of her own, released in November 1968, thus giving Denny international exposure as a songwriter before she had become widely known as a singer.

Professional career

After making the Saga albums with Alex Campbell and Johnny Silvo Denny was on the look out for a band where she could stretch herself as a vocalist, reach the wide audiences of rock, and have the opportunity to showcase her songwriting at the same time. Her motivation was, in her words, that “I wanted to do something more with my voice”.^[9] After hooking up briefly with The Strawbs on All Our Own Work Denny remained unconvinced that they could provide that opportunity, and so she ended her relationship with the band.

Fortuitously, Fairport Convention conducted auditions in May 1968 for a replacement singer following the departure of Judy Dyble after their debut album, and Denny became the obvious choice. Or rather, as group member Simon Nicol has often told the story, they auditioned for her, since her strong personality and confident musicianship made her stand out from the other hopefuls "like a clean glass in a sink full of dirty dishes".^[10] Beginning with What We Did On Our Holidays, the three albums she made with the band in the late sixties are the first peaks of her career. Furthermore, her arrival had a decisive effect on the band: Denny is credited with encouraging Fairport Convention to explore the traditional British folk repertoire, and is thus regarded as a key figure in the development of British folk rock.^[11] The Fairport she joined was a promising group playing mostly West Coast covers. The band she left eighteen months later had invented British folk rock. Denny brought with her the traditional repertoire she had honed in the clubs, including the important 'A Sailor's Life' featured on their second album together Unhalfbricking. Framing Denny's performance with their own electric improvisations, her band mates discovered a direction which provided the inspiration for an entire album, the influential (Liege & Lief 1969), and has continued to underpin Fairport's style ever since. Prior to her arrival, Fairport Convention had never performed a traditional song and Richard Thompson had yet to emerge a composer. Her arrival with some of her own compositions, an interest in traditional music and a voice that could handle absolutely anything had a decisive effect on all concerned.

Denny left Fairport Convention in 1969 to develop her own song writing more fully^[6]. To this end, she formed her own band, Fotheringay, which included her boyfriend, Trevor Lucas formerly of the group Eclection. They created one well regarded self-titled album (a second left unfinished in 1970 was finally released to acclaim in 2008) which included arguably her greatest traditional recording Banks of the Nile, and some of her most beautiful compositions including The Sea and Nothing More, the latter marking her first composition on the piano which was to take over as her primary instrument from now on. The group dissolved when producer Joe Boyd left to take up a job at Warner Brothers in California.

Sandy Denny now launched into the sequence of solo albums which are her claim to be one of Britain's finest singer-songwriters. Built mostly around her own compositions, they chart the development and diversity of her own writing. Throughout the sessions on her solo albums she was supported by distinguished musicians, many of them friends and former colleagues including Richard Thompson, Dave Swarbrick, Jerry Donahue, Sneaky Pete Kleinow (of Flying Burrito Brothers fame) Robin and Barry Dransfield, John (Rabbit) Bundrick, Allen Toussaint, Diz Disley, Steve Winwood and Acker Bilk.^[12] The first solo album The North Star Grassman and the Ravens was released in 1971 and is distinguished by its elusive lyrics and unexpected harmonies. Highlights included Late November, inspired by a dream and the death of Fairport band member Martin Lamble, and Next Time Around a cryptogram about Jackson C. Frank, one of her many portraits in song.

Sandy with a cover photograph by David Bailey followed in 1972 and remains her most cohesive musical statement as a singer and songwriter. Sure footed and sympathetically produced by Trevor Lucas, its songs range from glorious melody driven invocations to the power of music like Listen, Listen and The Lady to beguiling narrative songs like Bushes and Briars and It Suits Me Well. The album also marked her last recording of a traditional song, The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood (words by Richard Farina), with Denny's ambitious multi-tracked vocal arrangement inspired by the Ensemble of the Bulgarian Republic.

Readers of Melody Maker twice voted her the "Best British Female Singer" in 1970 and 1971 and together with contemporaries including Richard Thompson and Ashley Hutchings, she participated in a one-off project called The Bunch to record a collection of rock and roll era standards released under the title of Rock On which further demonstrated her versatility as a vocalist. During this period, Denny also appeared in a brief cameo on Lou Reizner's version of The Who's rock opera, Tommy, and duetted memorably with Robert Plant on The Battle of Evermore from Led Zeppelin's 1971 album (Led Zeppelin IV), becoming the only guest vocalist ever to appear on a Led Zeppelin album.^[10]

In 1973, she married long term boyfriend and producer Trevor Lucas and recorded a third solo album Like an Old Fashioned Waltz a nostalgic panoramic song-cycle detailing many of her personal preoccupations: loss, loneliness, fear of the dark, the passing of time and the changing seasons.^[13] Marred only by the (albeit convincing) covers of jazz numbers Whispering Grass and Until The Real Thing Comes Along, which seemed out of place and broke the subtle mood created with her own songs, the album contained one of her best loved compositions, Solo, and featured a cover image by Gered Mankowitz. The following year she returned to Fairport Convention (where her husband was now a member) for a world tour (captured on the 1974 album Fairport Live Convention) and a studio album, Rising for the Moon in 1975. Integrating her back into the band was not without problems as her development as a soloist and songwriter had taken her further away from the folk roots direction the band had pursued since Liege & Lief. Nonetheless, seven of the eleven tracks on Rising for the Moon were either written or co-written by her including two of her most admired songs Stranger to Himself and One More Chance.^[14] Her charisma and extraordinary alto voice were never in doubt, but the punishing world tour with Fairport Convention throughout 1974 and 1975 coupled with Denny's heavy drinking and smoking inevitably took a toll on her voice; some of its bell like purity had gone, but the control and power remained along with her subtle phrasing and characteristic grace notes.

Denny and Lucas left Fairport Convention at the end of 1975 and embarked on what was to become her final album Rendezvous. The record shows someone continuing to widen and deepen her song writing craft, and responsive to new influences: Gold Dust with its Caribbean influence, the soulful torch songs Take Me Away and I'm A Dreamer and most ambitious of all, an eight minute orchestral tribute to the English pastoral style of Vaughan Williams called All Our Days. Released in 1977, the album is now generally thought to be overproduced despite containing some of her finest compositions notably the aforementioned I'm A Dreamer and the strange and beautiful One Way Donkey Ride. Having relocated to the village of Byfield in Northamptonshire in the mid-seventies, Denny gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Georgia in July 1977.

A UK tour to promote Rendezvous in the autumn of 1977 marked her final public appearances. The closing night at the Royalty Theatre in London on 27 November 1977 was recorded for a live album, Gold Dust, which due to technical problems in the recording of the electric guitar, was belatedly released in 1998 after most of the guitars had been re-recorded by Jerry Donahue.^[15]

Death

In March 1978, while on holiday with her parents in Cornwall, Denny was injured when she fell down a staircase. A month after the fall she collapsed at a friend's home; four days later she died in Atkinson Morley Hospital.^[16] Her death was ruled to be the result of a traumatic mid-brain haemorrhage. The funeral took place on 27 April 1978 at Putney Vale Cemetery. After the vicar had read Denny's favourite psalm - Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd) - a piper played The Flowers of the Forest a traditional song commemorating the fallen of Flodden Field. The inscription on her headstone reads: 'The Lady' Alexandra Elene MacLean Lucas (Sandy Denny) 6.1.47 - 21.4.78.

Posthumous releases

Although Sandy Denny had a devoted cult following in her lifetime, she never achieved the mass market success she yearned for. In the years since her death, however, Denny's reputation has continued to grow, aided by the comprehensive re-issue of all her recordings. Additionally, a number of important posthumous releases have appeared that have further enhanced her legacy.

First was a four album boxset entitled Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1985) which was produced by her husband Trevor Lucas and producer Joe Boyd and included many rare and previously unreleased tracks. This was the first inkling her fans had that a large cache of unreleased material existed. Of particular interest were several acoustic demo performances of well known songs that were held to be superior to their studio counterparts. The success of the collection was the beginning of a renewed interest in Denny's career that resulted in Island issuing many of the recordings she made for the label on CD for the first time.

In 1991 Joe Boyd issued a new version of Denny's All Our Own Work album with The Strawbs called Sandy Denny and the Strawbs on his Hannibal Records label. The album had strings added to some tracks including "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" and further tracks with Denny on lead vocal.

The Australian label Raven Records issued a CD in 1995 called Sandy Denny, Trevor Lucas and Friends: The Attic Tracks 1972-1984 that included 12 previously unreleased Denny songs including the original piano version of "No End",^[17] demos recorded at home in Byfield, Rendezvous album session outakes (including her final studio recording, a cover of Bryn Haworth's "Moments") and three songs from the final concert at the Royalty Theatre.

A one disc compilation of Denny's solo BBC recordings was released on Strange Fruit Records as The BBC Sessions 1971-1973 in 1997 that due to rights issues was withdrawn on the day of release thereby creating a highly collectable disc (up until the release of the comprehensive Live at the BBC Boxset in 2007). This release was quickly followed in 1998 when Denny's final performance at the Royalty Theatre entitled Gold Dust was issued on CD.

In 2005 remastered versions of all her solo albums came out with bonus tracks. Prior to their release, in 2004 a second comprehensive five CD boxset was released on the Fledg'ling record label called A Boxful of Treasures that included many unreleased recordings in particular a whole disc of acoustic demos, many recorded at her home in Byfield that was highly prized amongst fans and critics alike, who had long asserted that her solo performances showed her work in its best light, revealing the true quality of her vocal style and compositions. When the Live at the BBC boxset came out in September 2007 it was rapturously praised wherever it was reviewed.^[18] This favorable critical response did much to continue the resurgence of interest in Sandy Denny's work.

In 2008, Jerry Donahue completed the unfinished second Fotheringay album begun in the autumn of 1970. It was released to general acclaim^[19] as Fotheringay 2 and contained some notable Denny performances in particular earlier versions of two Denny compositions "Late November" and "John the Gun", and superb performances of traditional songs "Gypsy Davey" and "Wild Mountain Thyme".

In 2010 a 19-CD complete retrospective was announced by Island Records. It will contain her entire studio recordings, outtakes, demos, live recordings and radio sessions and interviews.^[20]

Tributes and references

• Former Fairport Convention bandmate Richard Thompson's tune "That's All, Amen, Close The Door" on 1999's Mock Tudor is about Sandy Denny.

• Dave Pegg of Fairport Convention recorded the tribute "Song for Sandy" on his 1983 solo album The Cocktail Cowboy Goes It Alone.

• In 1998, a variety of Daylily was named after her.^[21][22]

• Mandy Morton and Spriguns changed the title of their 1978 album to Magic Lady after hearing of Denny's death while recording.^[23]

• Dave Cousins of Strawbs wrote "Ringing Down the Years" in memory of Sandy Denny as early as 1978-1979, and the song was first published as a single in 1979. The song is the title track on the Strawbs 1991 album Ringing Down the Years, and is also found on the CD Georgia On Our Mind, published for the benefit of Sandy Denny's daughter.

• Yo La Tengo covered Sandy Denny's song "By the Time it Gets Dark" on their 1998 EP, Little Honda.

• In the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" was voted "Favourite Folk Track of All Time" by the audience.^[24]

• Ex-Marillion frontman Fish covered "Solo" on his 1993 album Songs from the Mirror.^[25]

• Linde Nijland recorded the album of cover versions, Linde Nijland sings Sandy Denny, in 2003.^[26]

• In April 2008, a tribute concert was held at The Troubadour in London, to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Denny's death. Those taking part included Martin Carthy, Linda Thompson and Joe Boyd.^[27]

• A further tribute concert, ‘The Lady: A Tribute to Sandy Denny’, took place at London’s Southbank Centre, in December 2008, earning a 4* review in The Guardian.^[28] Backed by members of Bellowhead, artists on that occasion included Marc Almond, Jim Moray, Dave Swarbrick, PP Arnold and Mary Epworth.

• In 2008, Bob Harris made the BBC Radio 2 documentary portrait "The Sandy Denny Story: Who knows where the time goes", including Sandy Denny archive interview material and interviews with Robert Plant, Joe Boyd, Linde Nijland, Richard Thompson and others. The documentary was awarded silver at the Sony Radio Awards in 2009.

• By The Time It Gets Dark plays over the end credits of Richard Glatzer's 1994 film Grief.^[29]

• In 2010, Denny was recognized by NPR in their '50 Great Voices' special series, including reference to her duet with Robert Plant on The Battle of Evermore.^[30]

Discography

Albums

Singles

Guest appearances

• 1968, The Young Tradition's album Galleries (Transatlantic TRA 172)
• 1970, Stefan Grossman's album The Ragtime Cowboy Jew (Transatlantic) backing vocals in the chorus of "A Pretty Little Tune"
• 1971, Iain Matthews' (then: Ian Matthews) album If You Saw Thro' My Eyes (Vertigo), his first solo album, she duets on the aforementioned track and provides piano, harmonium and backing vocals to three other tracks.
• 1971, "The Battle of Evermore" on Led Zeppelin's fourth album, where she sings a duet with Robert Plant; in the footnotes of that album's sleeve notes, she is credited and has her own rune symbol of three triangles much like the symbols chosen by the other members of Led Zeppelin.
• 1972, four tracks on the soundtrack LP to the film Swedish Fly Girls produced by Manfred Mann Water Mother, What Will I Do With Tomorrow, Are The Judges Sane? and I Need You. Denny's tracks were recorded in 1969 at Maximum Sound.
• 1972, two tracks, "Here In Silence" and "Man of Iron" for the film Pass of Arms released as a 7" soundtrack single with picture sleeve.
• 1972, stage version of the Who's Tommy performed with the London Symphony Orchestra; Sandy plays the nurse and sings "It's a Boy"
• 1975, Charlie Drake's "You Never Know" single for Charisma Records (CB270), produced by Peter Gabriel^[40]

References and notes

• Heylin, Clinton (September 1988). "Sandy Denny". Record Collector (109): 61–66. 

Bibliography

• Clinton Heylin. No More Sad Refrains - The Life and Times of Sandy Denny. London, Helter Skelter, 2002. ISBN 1-900924-35-8
• Clinton Heylin. Gypsy Love Songs & Sad Refrains - The Recordings of Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny. Labour of Love Productions, 1989.
• Colin Larkin. The Guinness Who's Who of Folk Music. Guinness Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-85112-741-X
• Colin Harper, Trevor Hodgett. Irish Folk, Traditional & Blues: A Secret History. Cherry Red, 2005. ISBN 1-901447-40-5
• Pamela Murray Winters. No Thought of Leaving: A life of Sandy Denny. 2000. (Unpublished).
• Brian Hinton, Geoff Wall. Ashley Hutchings: The Guv'nor & the Rise of Folk Rock. London, Helter Skelter, 2002. ISBN 1-900924-32-3
• Patrick Humphries. Meet On The Ledge: The Classic Years 1967-1975. Virgin Books, 1997. ISBN 0-7535-0153-8
• Patrick Humphries. Richard Thompson: Strange Affair - The Biography. Virgin Books, 1996. ISBN 0-86369-993-6
• Philip Ward, "Sandy Denny: A Thirtieth Anniversary", R2 (Rock'n'Reel) 2(9), May/June 2008

External links

• Official website www.sandydenny.org.uk
• Official Sandy Denny MySpace including rare video clips
• Sandy Denny memorial page www.sandydenny.co.uk
• Sandy Denny website
• thebeesknees.com Sandy Denny reissues, bio and extensive discography
• No More Sad Refrains: A Sandy Denny Miscellany. including a three song BBC video
• Sandy Denny en castellano (Spanish)
• Audio feature on NPR's Fresh Air by Ed Ward, November 14, 2005 (requires audio player)
• 'You had to hold on to the furniture when Sandy sang' (Guardian Unlimited, Arts Friday Review, 6 May 2005)
• "'The lady she had a silver tongue': Sandy Denny as singer-songwriter" by Philip M Ward (online article, 2005)
• "In a Lonely Moment" By Clive James (Let It Rock Magazine, UK, March 1974; Reprinted in Fiddlestix, Issue 38, Spring 1995)
• Sandy Denny's Gravesite
• Sandy Denny List
• Fairport Conventon website
• The Independent, 21 April 2008, The ballad of Sandy Denny: Return of the folk queen
• Sandy Denny page in Japanese