From: Olivier Le Dour, 29 May 1998I am sure that many readers will find the following piece downloaded from today's "Irish Times" website interesting.
SISTER, YOU'RE A POET by Brian Boyd
A mysterious album called The BBC Sessions, on the Strange Fruit label and featuring the voice of Sandy Denny, was released for a period of 24 hours last year. Various lawyers from various record companies had it pulled from the Shelves of the record shops after its all-too-brief availability, but still The BBC sessions made it on to many a critic's "best albums of the year" list. The fascination with Sandy Denny continues apace. Called the finest British female singer of the last three decades (and when the competition includes Maggie Bell, Norma Watterson and June Tabor, that ain't half bad) she helped break down the "folk" and "rock" boundaries, mainly through her work with Richard Thompson in Fairport Convention, and was seen as a home-grown answer to Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell.
Now cited by both Blur and Sonic Youth as "the best female rock singer ever", her life has disturbing parallels with that of Nick Drake: both were English singer-songwriters, both were fixated on morbid themes, both died at an early age and both have only been truly acknowledged decades after their death. It wasn't just her awesome voice that propelled her into "retro cult", it was the quality of her s ongwriting - lyrical and romantic but always with a Emily Dickinson type twist, she's probably best remembered for Who Knows Where The Time Goes (famously covered by Judy Collins) but there's a lot more to her than that.
Born in 1947 and attending the same art college as Jimmy Page, she first made a name for herself on the thriving folk club circuit in London in the 1960s. Singing Tom Paxton covers as well as a rake of her own stuff, she soon tired of the folkie purists, or the "ethnic folkies" as she called them, and after one too many solo tours of Britain, she joined the then-unknown Strawbs (way before their Part Of The Union mini-success).
Tiring of their limited sound, she auditioned for the band that were then the talk of the town, Fairport Convention. Innocently, she presmumed the band to be American due to their West Coast sound of soft folk-inflected rock and Byrds-like arrangements, but Sandy's strong, earthy voice soon brought them to a different level; she is credited with curbing some of their "ethnic" excesses and helping the band to cross over to contemporary music territory.
Interestingly, she left the band when they decided they would take the purist path at the expense of original material, and she went on to form Fotheringay, who may only be a footnote in the history of popular music, but a pretty impressive footnote they remain. Her songwriting came to attract as much, if not more, attention as her voice, mainly because of her other-worldly lyrical ability. "The songs are biographical but only about 10 people can understand them," she once said. "I just take a story and whittle it down to essentials. I wouldn't write songs if they didn't mean something to me, but I'm not prepared to tell everyone about my private life like Joni Mitchell does.
I like to be more elusive than that. Take John Lennon, I think he really blew his cool when he explained exactly how he wrote Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds." Towards the end of her life, she resumed her solo career, and albums like North Star Grassman And The Ravens (1971), which features the song John The Gun, remain as evocative and eloquent as ever - her powerful voice and poetic lyrics would probably have her sounding like Portishead, or maybe Garbage, if she was around today.
On the eve of a massive American tour in 1978 and aged just 31, she fell down the stairs of a friend's house and lapsed into a coma from which she never awoke. A 1977 live album has just been released and is doing very nicely, thank you; and as more and more people get switched on to her wondrous voice and words, expect more and more of her material to be re-released, pending lawyers sorting everything out. Shameful that it took us 20 years to realise just how good she was.
Gold Dust - Sandy Denny Live At The Royalty has just been released by Island/ Polygram Records.
From: John Penhallow, 30 May 1998
A 1977 live album has just been released and is doing very nicely, thank you; and as more and more people get switched on to her wondrous voice and words, expect more and more of her material to be re-released, pending lawyers sorting everything out. Shameful that it took us 20 years to realise just how good she was.
There's an unsustantiated optomistic statement for you!! I can assure all Sandy fans in this group that there is no more in the cupboard worthy of a CD release. All I want to see is a settlement of the BBC Sessions between Polygram, the BBC and Strange Fruit so that all those new fans drawn in by the publicity of Mojo, Irish Times and the Guardian get another chance to buy the CD as a "follow-up" to Gold Dust, hopefully by Christmas. This is just my optimistic wish that's all.
Reasonably assessed, without a fans heart overruling one's head, take another look at the Attic Tracks cassettes and tell me if there is anything in there that would gel as an album with a meaning for both fans and Sandy's attractions. Sure there's some interesting demos and the All our Days choral and orchestral versions but they formed part of the Rendezvous sessions and belong on an extended re-issue of Rendezvous to make any sense and that's just unlikely to happen.
This Gold Dust release is like "The End" - all that remains is the lost Fotheringay BBC sessions and their abandoned second album tracks like John the Gun as mentioned in the Mojo article and by Jerry D as a version with his dad taking a sax solo, but they are not surfacing despite many hours of research by Martin Jonas and others. The Attic Tracks CD was the mop up CD of the best of the outtakes" and it still is very enjoyable as 70 minute roundup record of varying styles and performances of Sandy and Trevor - many that didn't "fit" with the albums being completed at the time they were recorded or were just bits of fun to warm up their hands before getting serious.
I don't think anyone would be too interested in the early BBC demos as Sandy's singing style was still in early development and better songs and performances are still available on the Mooncrest and Strawbs CDs. Real long term fans can still purchase the AT3 cassette and, if pestered, I'll run off an AT1 to order although the master is getting old and I'm not going to reassemble it again.
Let's just enjoy what we've got as listed in Mojo's discography and hope that enough new fans buy enough of the catalague each year to keep them in print. Keep those reviews and comments on Gold Dust happening - Liz and I sure love reading them - and when we get our stock - hopefully next week - we'll be able to discuss favourite track, most improved song over the bootleg or AT3 version, Jerry's best solo and if you reckon any song is preferred to the original studio version.
Today I've received a mail from the Fairport List about the correct track listing of Sandy's Gold Dust. I'm copying the info below with the "possible" permission of Brent Burhans.
The actual sequence of the concert: 9, 14, 5, 8, 3, 10, 6, 11, 13, 7, 12, 1, 2, 4, 15, 17, 16. I assume the first performed song was CD track 9 (Solo), the second performed song was CD track 14 (Grassman).
That is correct. Program the "Gold Dust" CD in the above order, and you will have the correct sequence of the actual concert, according to John Penhallow.
After comparing the sequencing of "Gold Dust" to that of the original cassette release, the bootleg CD and Clinton Heylin's listing in "Sad Refrains: The Recordings Of Sandy Denny 1966-1977", I wrote John asking for the actual performance order of the concert, which he kindly provided me. It makes for a different listening experience, though one does have to ignore the abrupt gaps in the between-song applause caused by resequencing the CD. Beginning the concert with 'Solo' is a considerable change from beginning with 'For Shame Of Doing Wrong', for instance. As for the end, I think that WKWTTG was probably the first of two encores ('No More Sad Refrains' being the second), rather than the last song of the concert. With virtually all the between-song applause and chat missing, it's hard to tell for sure. Is the "concert" better because of the resequencing? Not to my ears, but I readily admit to being a "purist". As with the "improvement" of the overdubs, I prefer the un-improved original, including the original performance order of the concert; not the order that someone-20 years later-thinks would sound better.
Brent
From: John Rees, 7 August 2013
I have done a bit of an update on the Wikipedia Entry for Sandy's "Gold Dust" album here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Dust_%28Sandy_Denny_album%29 and raised a few unresolved issues on the associated "talk" page. Any assistance with / comments on these would be welcome! Regard - Tony Rees, Australia
From: Steven Shutt, 7 August 2001
I must be the only person on the planet who actually enjoys Sandy's singing on Gold Dust. I thought the way Heylin described that concert was utter crap, emphasizing that Sand was a basket case that night--well, sweetie, you just spent several pages earlier in the book reminding us over and over again that she suffered from stage fright her whole life. Wouldn't you expect her to be just a bit nervous at the final concert of an exhausting tour, especially at such a big venue? GET A CLUE. But hey, it's not like he threw the thing together in like, 9 months or something, is it???
Her voice is DIFFERENT from how it was earlier in her life. It's a darker, throatier, huskier voice. But I would maintain that TO MY TASTE (and let's remember, fans, that TASTE is a SUBJECTIVE experience, so feel free to denounce MY opinions as bollocks) her voice has a new kind of beauty. And then there's the phrasing--magical as always. But in some ways, the performance of One Last Chance here is my favorite of all the recordings available of that song. Her melismas on the phrase "Is it too late?" hit me right in the gut and have a soaring, swooping emotiveness that I don't hear on other performances of that song.
To me, the Gold Dust concert is an outstanding final statement from Sand. I see it as the last gift she bequeathed to us fans. I just can't stand by and see that gift trashed without raising a hand and tossing in me pennies.
That's all,
Steve
From: PEAGAN6295@AOL.COM, August 7, 2001
Steve et al-
I agree with you wholeheartedly about Sandy's "Gold Dust" Concert recording.
I LOVE this concert CD.
Having followed Sandy's (and Fairport's) music "sporadically" from the late sixties to the current time (I'm 58 now) I have found that Sandy's voice to be just incredible at every stage of her life. Early on, it was pure, crystal clear and melodic. (listen to "Wild Mountain Thyme" on the BBC tapes for a beautiful example)
As she grew older, it seems to me that her voice became fuller, richer, more rounded and powerful; very cutting and riveting!
By the time the "Gold Dust" concert was recorded, It seems that her voice (and I'm not sure if this is really the word I'm looking for) "matured" and she took advantage of her great natural ability to emotionalize (even better than ever) her feelings as she presented each song to her audience. The little nuances that she used in expressing herself were just heartgrabbing! Note the split-second shift from "full-out" to almost a whisper, especially in this concert presentation, as one example.
Sandy seemed to have become so entranced in each song, that her vocal presentation exuded her tremendous inner feelings and she let it all pour forth straight from the heart in whatever mode she wanted at the time. Those modes changed often, being the outstandingly gifted singer that she was,
I don't believe she ever sang each song in "exactly" the same manner each time it was presented. I think that her emotions of the day must have slightly altered her vocal presentation, and thus, we see the nuances, the quirks and the ever-so-slight stylization changes in each song she performed from concert-to-concert or recording-to-recording. I don't mean the instrumental variations in arrangements of the same song from recording-to-recording. No, I mean the pure "Sandy" variations she
displayed in the songs.
God, how did I ever get so involved with her voice, rambling on at length here!!!
I didn't mean to get so involved but just wanted to say that "Gold Dust," TO ME, is one of only a few masterpieces of Sandy's art.
Paul
From: Brent W. Burhans, August 8, 2001
I have no problem with SD's voice being rougher on "Gold Dust" than on earlier albums, not least because it's a true record of what she sounded like on that night. My main problem with the album is the heavy revisionism applied to the original concert:
1- Overdubs: The sound of the recording might have been "improved" by the overdubs of Jerry Donahue's guitar, and Simon Nicol's and Chris Leslie's vocals; but I would prefer to hear the concert as it sounded at the time (technical warts and all). The three (pre-overdub) songs from the concert which appeared on "The Attic Tracks" CD sound just fine (and would probably have sounded better had they been subjected to the remastering which went into the "Gold Dust" CD). If they are representative of the entire tape, then I can see no excuse for the overdubs (done two decades later by people who didn't play at the concert).
2- Sequence: Whether the song order on the CD is "better" than the original concert is moot. SD opened her final (major) concert with 'Solo', not 'For Shame of Doing Wrong'; and carried on with the set list she had chosen. What was good enough for her should be good enough for us. Had SD been alive to prepare and sanction the release herself, and had she decided on the overdubs and resequencing; I still wouldn't agree with the decision, but would concede her artistic right to do what she wanted with her music. For someone to decide 20 years after her death that the concert would sound better with the songs switched around is-to my way of thinking-historically inappropriate at best (and-at worst-arrogant).
Having said all that, I'm still very glad to have the concert available, even in it's 'imperfect' state.
Brent
P.S. The correct sequence of the concert is:
9-14-5-8-3-10-6-11-13-7-12-1-2-4-15-17-16
From: John Penhallow, Aug 09, 2001
Hi everyone,
It must be the August Moon Cropredy Time influence - the list members are all very focused on this discussion subject and that's great to see.
I think I can speak with some authority on both of these CDs so I'll add this in for clarification.
The 3 tracks chosen for the Attic Tracks CD were a process of elimination by evaluating the strength of the performances, the quality of the production that we had to work with and the remaining time available on the disc. I also had a desire to see that the whole concert got released at some future point so just wanted to give a taste of what was in store. The tapes we worked from were Trevor's "rough" masters - a quick mix down to stereo quarter inch tape done sometime after the event for Trevor and Sandy to listen to at home - not what I would call a "real" mix but good enough for the Raven Records project. The out of tune guitar WAS a factor in eliminating some songs and if I had to assemble it again I would stick with the same songs - I think we got it right.
While I'm not sure of the source of the NMSR bootleg version - it could have been from an early cassette dub I supplied someone before we officially released the AT3 cassette. So the sound difference between it and the AT CD is in the source used and the fact that Raven's Mastering Engineer, Warren Barnett, went out to the Sony Mastering Lab in Sydney and used their Sonic Sound Solutions process on all the tracks to clean up the tape hiss and add an audio sheen to it at the mastering stage.
With Gold Dust I think everybody is being a bit harsh on Jerry Donahue here - you have to remember that Jerry had played on most of the original recordings and certainly on other tours with Sandy and bands. Indeed, I still think of Jerry's lead guitar sound and playing style as part of Sandy's song/production signature on songs she did with Fothers, FC and solo albums - more so than Richard's lead parts on her recordings. I also have had the opportunity to catch up with Jerry when he toured here in May and when I've visited LA in years past. I recall him telling me that Trevor had asked him to do the '77 tour but because he was committed elsewhere (a Joan Armour plating tour I believe) so he couldn't do it - that doesn't make him an "outsider" to the Gold Dust remix project. Re: the added backing vocals - I've not asked Chris whether he actually met or sung with Sandy in his early folk circuit days but he's certainly a big fan and Simon, of course, was a good friend of hers anyway. The 2 Jerry's - (Engineer Jerry Boys used to work with John Woods at Sound Techniques back in the 60's as a Tape Op. and had worked on Sandy's sessions - his other project at that time was the Buena Vista CD with Ry Cooder - more class you could not get!) considered that the backing vocals on the concert multi track masters were either too low in level or not there but worthwhile adding in to enhance the final mix. I also remembered suggesting that the audience applause was too low on the cassette mix and needed boosting to improve the concert excitement level. So while I can draw the line at Kenny G doing overdubbed duets on Louis Armstrong tracks - this is clearly not in the same league and I have no regrets about the 1997/8 enhanced final product - it was done by friends with a great deal of personal love and respect for Sandy and Trevor and at least royalties get paid to those who are entitled to them!
Finally, my only regret about Gold Dust is that the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald Weekly Guide couldn't find space for critic and Sandy fan, Bruce Elder's review in the month of release here so Liz and I are left with a 100 copies of this great CD that otherwise would have sold through in days had it been published. Any offers - wholesale or retail?
John Penhallow
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