So what comic related items did you get for Xmas then?

[steelclaw]

I saw Sandy Denny singing in London in the summer of 1967

As probably the only person on these boards who knows who you mean without wikipedia, I should tell you, I saw Sandy ten years after that, in 1977, when her voice was a bit ravaged by time and the bottle but she even then had what i still consider to be the most beautiful voice I've ever heard.
Who what were or when is the female person in your one-time act?

Not quite I have a Fairport convention album, I haven't played it for a while though.

[Phoenix]

As probably the only person on these boards who knows who you mean without wikipedia, I should tell you, I saw Sandy ten years after that, in 1977, when her voice was a bit ravaged by time and the bottle but she even then had what i still consider to be the most beautiful voice I've ever heard.

I know what you mean, NP, but beauty is in the eye, or ear in this case, of the beholder. I would prefer to describe her voice as haunting. What struck me very forcibly about her when I saw her in that London club was the purity of her voice, but equally impressive was her phrasing. I imbibed something of that from her performance that evening. In the same club, I saw Julie Driscoll with Brian Augur and Long John Baldry. I think the band was called Steam Packet, and it may have been the previous year but I was on my own so I don't think so. Her performance was interesting enough but voicewise she really couldn't hold a candle to Sandy Denny. In my opinion, Sandy was never more wonderful than on Fairport's 1969 album Liege and Lief. There isn't a bad track on it, but if I was to be picky I would single out Come All Ye, which she wrote with Ashley Hutchings, and two traditional songs, Tam Lin and The Deserter. But the piece de resistance has to be Matty Groves, another traditional song the group adapted. In a strange way this is not her best performance, probably because it is a bit too quick for her to express herself as she does in Come All Ye for example, but at a deeper level she owns the song. She moves with the insistent rhythm that, on the one hand, suggests the urgency of Matty's coupling with Lord Darnell's wife, and the speed with which the servant took the news of his wife's betrayal to his master, Lord Darnell, and on the other hand, the inevitability of the final curtain for the lovers. Yes, she was special.

Who what were or when is the female person in your one-time act?

The girl's name at the time was Joy Crabtree, and she was the sister of Hal, the other guy in our group. She got married I think in 1970, two years after me. Since her divorce she has reverted to her maiden name. However, under her married name of Joy Sarney she did reach number 30 in the NME chart for one week in May 1977, and consequently got two successive appearances on Top Of The Pops, with a quirky song called Naughty, Naughty, Naughty. You can see this performance on YouTube. We are still in regular contact, sometimes via Skype.

[philcom55]

Sadly I never got to see Sandy Denny perform live before her tragic death, but that's ensured her a permanent place in my mind amongst those singers who'll always be young and beautiful. 'Haunting' certainly is the word to describe her voice, to the extent that I just can't hear her singing Richard Thompson's words to 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes?' or the lovely 'Farewell, Farewell' without feeling a shiver run down my spine. Looking back it's hard to believe that any single group could contain as much individual talent as the Fairport Convention of Liege and Lief - which, of course, is why Denny and others left soon after. Nothing good lasts forever!

- Phil Rushton

[Rogerhat]

As we are talking about Sandy Denny, does anyone know where I can get her version of "The band played waltzing Matilda"? I heard it on John Peel once, but never managed to track it down

[Phoenix]

As we are talking about Sandy Denny, does anyone know where I can get her version of "The band played waltzing Matilda"? I heard it on John Peel once, but never managed to track it down

I'm not sure she ever did record it, Tim, but June Tabor certainly did, on her album Airs and Graces. According to the Wikipedia, June also sang it unaccompanied on one of John Peel's Radio 1 shows in March 1975. Around that time June recorded the album Silly Sisters with Maddy Prior on the Chrysalis label. This may not be relevant but it does show that she was very much in the mix during that period.

[Rogerhat]

It was definitely Sandy Denny, John Peel played it as a birthday tribute to her, maybe it was done as a Peel session.

[steelclaw]

Here's a link to some of Sandy Dennys BBC Recordings on CD.

http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~z ... sions.html

She recorded a song for a John Peel Session called 'Like an old fashioned Waltz' in 1973.

[Rogerhat]

I'm sure it was her, as it was the first time I'd heard the song, and the first time I'd heard of Eric Bogle. I'd always assumed it was some obscure Fairports recording, but I maybe wrong it was a long time ago

[Phoenix]

I'm sure it was her, as it was the first time I'd heard the song, and the first time I'd heard of Eric Bogle. I'd always assumed it was some obscure Fairports recording, but I maybe wrong it was a long time ago

It would appear, Tim, that the link steeclaw has posted supports my view that Sandy didn't record it, even during her radio sessions. However, I do have something that might just offset your disappointment. I've been rummaging this afternoon through boxes and boxes full of cassette tapes, looking for one containing a programme that I vaguely remember having recorded many years ago. I found it eventually. It is a Folk On 2 from April 1988 introduced by Jim Lloyd. The entire programme is a tribute to Sandy Denny ten years to the week after her death. It is divided into three sections. The first is an interview with her by Clive Jordan in one of his Tomorrow's People programmes from 1972. In the second part, people she knew talk about her. There are contributions from Linda Thompson, John Renbourn, Dave Cousins from The Strawbs, Joe Boyd, Roy Guest and Richard Thompson. During these first two parts snatches of some of her appropriate songs are interspersed. The final part is devoted to her music, songs in full, starting with one from a Sounds Of The Seventies programme from October 1972, just her and her piano, followed by several songs from a BBC radio concert from earlier that same year. It takes up virtually both sides of a C90 and while I was listening to it this evening I recorded it for you at the same time. Unfortunately The Band Played Waltzing Matilda isn't on it but I'm sure you will find it a fascinating retrospective nevertheless. If you want it, just PM me your address and I'll get it into the post tomorrow. No charge. Just let us know what you think of it.

[Phoenix]

Looking back it's hard to believe that any single group could contain as much individual talent as the Fairport Convention of Liege and Lief - which, of course, is why Denny and others left soon after. Nothing good lasts forever!

I think they were actually just restless, Phil, but those artists were not lost to us at that point. Sandy certainly left Fairport Convention after Liege and Lief, but she went to Fotheringay and then went solo, only returning to Fairport for about a year in 1975, finally leaving a mere couple of years before her untimely death. It is perhaps an acknowledgement that she was irreplaceable that no other female recorded with Fairport after Liege and Lief. Ashley Hutchings left at the same time to join Steeleye Span, but by 1972 he was in the Albion Country Band along with Dave Mattacks, who left Fairport sometime after they had recorded Babbacombe Lee, but then returned in 1974. This branch of the British folk scene at that time was like a Hydra. Ian Matthews left Fairport to form Matthews' Southern Comfort in 1969, Trevor Lucas, Sandy's lover and then husband, moved from Eclection to Fotheringay and then to Fairport. Martin Carthy was in Steeleye on a couple of occasions, spent some time with the Albion and then joined The Watersons before or after marrying Norma Waterson, and in recent years has toured with her and Dave Swarbrick, sometimes with their daughter Liza. Other notable artists popped in and out of these bands over the two main decades, such as Dave Pegg, Simon Nicol, Shirley Collins, Richard and Linda Thompson, often at the same time as they pursued solo careers, just like Martin Carthy. Although Hutchings and Carthy were the link with Steeleye, that group's essence was always Maddy Prior and Tim Hart, who sadly died of lung cancer on Christmas Eve aged 61. These musical chairs did not hinder the progress of the bands. The public didn't necessarily know, when they booked their concert tickets, which performers were going to turn up, but it really didn't matter. Performers and audience came together to share the musical experience. This interaction was never more obvious than when, during a jig or a reel, Maddy Prior would come down from the stage and dance all the way round the auditorium. I saw Show Of Hands do something similar a year or so back at the Pacific Road theatre in Birkenhead, when they came down off the apron and sang one of their better known songs right in front of the audience, who quite naturally sang along with them. This interaction was so common in the folk clubs in the Sixties. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

[philcom55]

As you say Phoenix the British Folk scene has been a dance of changing partners over the years, and no bad thing for that: even the crumbling relationship of Richard and Linda Thompson gave us their brilliant swansong together Shoot Out The Lights. A few years ago I was lucky enough to see an excellent concert in which Martin Carthy, his wife and daughter performed together with Dave Swarbrick - and while Norma's longevity means that I'll never be able to see her as 'perpetually young and beautiful' like Sandy Denny it has to be said that her voice had never been richer nor more wonderful!

- Phil Rushton

[Rogerhat]

[ If you want it, just PM me your address and I'll get it into the post tomorrow. No charge. Just let us know what you think of it.

A very kind offer, and I've love to hear it, but I no longer have any way of playing cassettes. My last machine gave up the ghost, and I can't see myself buying a new one. I

[Phoenix]

A very kind offer, and I've love to hear it, but I no longer have any way of playing cassettes. My last machine gave up the ghost, and I can't see myself buying a new one.

No problem, Tim. Does anybody else want it? You could always borrow a Walkman for a couple of hours from a friend or your next door neighbour. Alternatively, as the floor does seem to have dropped out of the cassette player market, now might just be a good time to take advantage of the opportunities offered on eBay (currently 8 full pages). The prices are so low that even an Icelandic bank would be able to come up with enough pennies.