No More Sad Refrains: The Life and Times of Sandy Denny

by Clinton Heylin

  Joe Boyd: Sandy wanted to be a diva, she wanted to be a pop star. But she had too much good taste to follow those impulses too far. Trevor I don’t think was a strong personality as a producer. He had ideas which were okay, but you don’t feel that there’s a really strong vision unifying the records from beginning to end. It’s not a consistent feeling.

  When Sandy suggested recording two songs from her childhood radio days, at the end of the August sessions, Trevor’s lack of a strong alternative enabled the idea to reach fruition. As John Wood remembers it, Fats Waller’s ‘Until The Real Thing Comes Along’ “came up quite accidentally. We were sitting around somewhere and Fats came into the conversation and she just started singing the song, and it grew from there. We decided to record it partly because she wasn’t writing an awful lot of material at the time.” If a dose of Waller was bad enough, then the Inkspots’ ‘Whispering Grass’, complete with ‘whispering brass’, was ten times worse.

  Philippa Clare: If in doubt, Trevor would put on a lot of strings – wanting her to be the great, grand diva … Trevor wanted Sandy to be a huge star … Trevor was always Mr Showbiz, and he knew that Sandy could really do it. But I think Sandy was fairly ambivalent … about it.

  If the ambivalence was real, so was Sandy’s love for a certain type of schmaltz. Dave Pegg remembers one occasion in 1974 when Sandy and Fairport were in a revolving restaurant in America, after a show, “and there’s a trio in the middle of the restaurant … we’re going round, but they’re not moving. Sandy’s a bit refreshed and the first time we go past, she misses them completely. The next time we go past them, she goes … ‘I’m gonna sing with them.’ So she gets up and she goes, ‘Do you know ‘A Foggy Day in London Town’?’ ‘[Sure.] What key?’ Maybe C. Off they go, and she’s there, giving it all the cabaret bit. And it was sensational.”

  What had usually held Sandy back on record was, as Boyd suggests, “too much good taste.” This time, though, concerned that her new album might be too downbeat, Sandy elected to break the mood. Though an album of such covers, in and of itself, might have proved a grand idea, both ‘Whispering Grass’ and ‘Until The Real Thing Comes Along’ remain thoroughly distracting occupying the middle of sides one and two of Sandy’s third solo album. The remaining songs were also given their fair share of fur-coats, and that extraordinary seven-and-a-half minute solo rendition of ‘No End’ from December 1972 was discarded in favour of the A&M recording, duly bathed in Harry Robinson’s strings. Only in performance was it stripped to its essence, ready for a vocal for the ages.

  At the beginning of September, with the album in Island’s hands, Sandy definitively proved that the way to record her was with a mobile truck, and a few friends on hand. It was probably after this one-off concert, at the Howff in Camden Town, that John Wood asked Sandy, “Why don’t you sing like that in the studio, then?” and she replied, “You try. Where’s the audience?” Sadly there was no truck on standby that night, though the crowd was, in Al Stewart’s words, “sort of like a Who’s Who of the English folk scene.” Stewart also recalls a Sandy, “paranoid with stage-fright. She did not want to go on that stage.” It was the first time he had seen Sandy perform in some time and he remembers noting that “she didn’t [previously] have stage-fright … when she was with Fairport … [but] at the Howff she was really shaky.”

  When she finally mounted the small stage, Sandy threw herself into the material as if only performing itself could offer her temporary remission from her progressive stage-fright. The after-show Sandy, though, high on relief, inevitably over-indulged in alcoholic refreshment.

  David Sandison: She came off [at the Howff] so up and so thrilled, ‘cause it had worked, and the audience reaction was everything she could have wanted, ‘cause it was a brilliant, brilliant show … but she was drinking really heavily afterwards. And she wasn’t an amiable drunk; she got belligerent and argumentative … My take on it at the time was that Trevor had said something just to cut away from the triumph. I’m pretty sure that Trevor blew the evening for her, and she got horribly upset, screaming and tearful. It was awfully sad. It shouldn’t have been like that. It really was a wonderful night.

  Still, she had finally delivered, in front of all her secret admirers in the mainstream press, generating a series of reviews quite unlike anything she had ever experienced. If Guardian reviewer Martin Walker suggested that “the only woman I have heard who could compel an audience in this blunt and harshly loving way was Janis Joplin,” and Karl Dallas, in Melody Maker, called it “a completely flawless performance,” it was Robin Denselow’s Daily Telegraph review that most evidently crossed over into helpless hyperbole:

  “It was one of those happenings that critics dream of but rarely experience, when a good but hitherto erratic singer suddenly takes off, carrying her audience with her on the kind of trip that singing is really all about. It was, in fact, Sandy Denny’s moment of truth … In some of her songs tonight … talent became genius and there were glimpses of depths which few other singers have revealed to us.”

  Once again, though, external events were to conspire against her. Just as Sandy was preparing to reach for the sky, her previously dependable record company was quietly removing the landing-gear.

  11

  1973–74: RETURNING TO THE FOLD

  Lyrics from ‘Goodnight World’

  “There was just this immense capacity for reaching people. And it was just kind of drifting. I mean, she was making good records, but nobody was channelling it properly. Nobody was. I mean, Island were doing their bit. They were releasing them, they were promoting them, but there wasn’t anything constructive going on in career terms, in terms of tour planning or putting a band together or any of that stuff. It just wasn’t going on. And my knowledge of meeting her off and on socially was that increasingly she was a wreck. She was confused, she was wandering, she was drinking. And she and Trevor clearly weren’t happy together.” [PW]

  David Sandison

  Whether or not Trevor himself precipitated the tears that followed the Howff gig, he was soon ushering Sandy into a cab home, where over the next few days they sat and read the glowing reviews of her triumph. Together again, at the end of the day, they made a snap decision to finally exchange wedding vows, after nearly five years as a cohabiting couple. The two months in the States had convinced Sandy that she needed Trevor. As she insisted in 1977, when their marriage was at its rockiest, “it was either that or [nothing] … the final thing that breaks up people [is] when they don’t see enough of each other.”

  Neil Denny had previously been assured by Edna that there was no possibility of their daughter marrying this lumbering Australian, and was mortified to hear the news on their return from a holiday in Scotland. He had never taken to Trevor and refused to give his only daughter away, or to even attend the ceremony, scheduled for the afternoon of September 20 at Fulham Registry Office. Edna, though, decided to face his rebukes, attending what was meant to be a largely private affair, Sandy having invited just her parents, her brother David, and two of her oldest and dearest friends. Even then, Miranda nearly took the Neil way out, having to be persuaded by her parents, with whom Sandy was a firm favourite, to lend her moral support.

  Miranda Ward: I nearly didn’t go the wedding ‘cause I didn’t think it was right move. It was my father who actually said, “No, you’ve got to because she’s gonna need your support when it all falls down, and you can’t turn around and say, I told you so.” … I think they got married to save the relationship … [But] if you suddenly realise that it’s half day closing and you haven’t got a bloody wedding ring [it’s pretty unplanned].

  Adding to the impromptu nature of the exercise, not to say the slightly surreal air to the day, was Sandy’s choice of ‘maid of honour’, one of the great loves of her life and the closest she could come to a surrogate father, Danny Thompson. Thompson even found himself acting the chaperon on an unscheduled honeymoon, after berating Trevor for being ‘unromantic’ at Paddi
ngton station, where he proved less than willing to carry his new bride onto the train.

  Danny Thompson: She said, “We’re getting married, will you come and spend the night at the flat in Fulham the night before we go to the registry office.” I said “What, be best man?” She said, “Well, whatever.” So I got Trevor’s suit ready and everything, cleared up all the fag ends that were lying around the place – because she was notorious for lighting 200 fags a day and leaving them burning and standing them up like candles. All these cork tips on the mantlepiece … I remember doing all that in the morning, getting them off to the registry office and saying “All the best,” genuinely chuffed for her, that she’d got a relationship, that she was getting married, not one of those relationships where the woman gets bounced about, a fairly stable relationship. But then she said, “Well, you’re coming on the honeymoon, aren’t you?” I said, “Don’t be ridiculous.” And she said “No, go on. “I think she thought, “Oh, if Danny comes it’ll be a laugh.” Trev never said anything. I supppose he didn’t want to rock the boat. Fairport had a TV appearence in Plymouth. So I went with them. [JI]

  The irony in Trevor’s gesture of arranging for a press photographer to snap the happy couple on the steps of Fulham Registry Office must have struck anyone who had heard the opening track on Sandy’s latest album, which she had only just delivered to Island two weeks earlier. She seemed very happy with the album, christened Like An Old Fashioned Waltz, and envisaged a prompt release, making for her third album in three years, and set about assembling a small combo that could accompany her when she resumed touring activities.

  Sandy had only just informed a journalist that she longed “to be [back] in a band, so that I [don’t] carry all the responsibility … I kind of miss the slight anonymity of just being a member of a group … [But] I’m going to be playing with Pat (Donaldson) and Gerry (Conway) – just them to start with, until we get something else happening.” In fact, Jerry Donahue recalls the five members of Fotheringay having dinner that summer and “Pat, Gerry and Sandy want[ing] to restart the band … I said, ‘What do you think, Trevor?’ and he said, ‘I’ll do whatever you do.’” Donahue, though, was happy playing with Fairport and the idea came to naught. When Gerry Conway went off with Cat Stevens, Sandy was obliged to assemble a trio around Pat Donaldson.

  The new band – which made its debut and, as it transpires, farewell performance at a BBC radio session on November 14, where they performed two songs, ‘Dark The Night’ and ‘Solo’, from the ‘forthcoming’ album – comprised Pat Donaldson, Hughie Burns and Willie Murray. On the admittedly slender evidence of their two-song session, this three-piece was as close to a rock combo as Sandy had ever come, the sound of these tracks leading onto the unabashed mainstream musical vocabulary in evidence on her next album Rendezvous.

  Unfortunately, Island no longer considered the Witchseason acts a priority and, despite scheduling a number of dates in November on the college circuit, Sandy found her new platter had been delayed until March, thus negating the point of a tour. Though publicity manager David Sandison says he “never picked up on any lack of willing on Island’s part … everybody at Island adored all the Witchseason acts,” he admits that the label was slowly reinventing itself, at the expense of their more traditional roster, and that “things had started to get kinda skewiff at Island. [Chris] Blackwell was away most of the time, he was making the Jimmy Cliff film, The Harder They Come. Although [David] Bettridge was running it, in A&R terms it was always down to Chris … It [had been] a wonderful company. I was talking with Chris one time [about a new signing] and he said, ‘They’ve got four albums to make it’ – which is a hell of a luxury – but … getting decisions made [had become] impossible, certainly crucial artistic decisions.”

  Sandy needed a Joe Boyd, someone who was part of the creative process. Supportive as her brother David was, he was no Boyd. As she admitted to a journalist back in September, “I’m a bit numb about the way things are going at the moment. When you’re a bit indecisive about some things it becomes such a strain to make a decision … one gets into a sort of mesmeric state about where things are going.” In this context, it is perhaps not surprising that she made a decision to temporarily subsume her artistic identity within the communal confines of Fairport Convention, who had a Far East tour booked after Christmas, and into the New Year. Without committing herself to any long-term reunion, she was giving herself the opportunity to recharge some batteries, as well as giving her husband the oportunity to enact some of those wedding vows.

  Sandy Denny: [When] I went on tour with [Fairport] … I wouldn’t have done, actually, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the released album was late. I decided that the gigs I did hold for myself were a bit superfluous … Fairport were going to be away for two months, and as I hadn’t seen Trevor very much, I thought I’d go with them. [1974]

  That summer Sandy had been bemoaning the fact that Trevor was “off on the road again for a couple of months, at the end of September, then he’s off again after that … it’s obviously a bit of a strain, [even though] he’s really got into it,” betraying the self-same doubts that had led her to tie the knot. Joe Boyd, now merely an interested observer, considers Sandy just one of a number of “women who [were] very successful in this business, [where success] create[d] a certain distance between them and the men that they’re involved with.” He now saw Sandy again “set up a situation where they wouldn’t be too separate from [each other] in the way that they advanced in their careers.”

  However, Sandy’s return to the democracy that was Fairport was no fait accomplis. As Jerry Donahue remembers it, “Swarb and DM were the last to go along with that, for completely different reasons. I felt DM figured she might be difficult, too high-strung. Swarb, his reservations were that she would steal some of the limelight. I guess he was probably the last to be convinced that it was a good idea. The rest of us were all ready to go.” Even Swarb knew that Fairport were never going to revive “that special rock idiom” without a force like Sandy, whatever whirlwind her addition might reap.

  Dave Swarbrick: I wondered a little bit about possible ructions. It’s never been easy being in a group with a woman. If you got a woman in a group, she pines for home more than a bloke does, and chances are you’re gonna have more of a difficult time on the road. It is harder on the road for a woman than a bloke. If you’re surrounded by fair dinkum blokes who like having a good time all the time, things can get hairy. There would become times when she would despair. I guess I was worried in case I wasn’t going to get as easy a life as I’d been having. I don’t know whether I made those worries vocal, but what was the matter with the group was it didn’t have a singer. [No-one] had the depth that Sandy had … The only thing that happened, was the sets got longer.

  Sandy’s membership also afforded a good deal more commerciality to Fairport’s next project, a live album they planned to record at two shows at the Sydney Opera House at the end of January, both of which had about sold out. The band had recorded a number of shows with the Nine line-up, and back in 1970 had recorded three nights at the Troubador, but they had never released a live album as such, despite a formidable live reputation. With Sandy on board, a whole slew of possible numbers could be restored to the set, including some originally conceived with those Fotheringay half-breeds.

  Dave Pegg: The reason [Fairport Live] was like [it was] was because we didn’t have any time to rehearse any stuff. We went to Japan, and we went to Australia, and [Sandy] really wanted to come along, ‘cause she didn’t like being on her own, and Trevor being away. So she came along with us and we said, “You have to get up. [We] can’t just be in Tokyo, and have you sitting at the side of the stage. You have to sing.” And that’s how that album came about. It really was just busked on the day of the gig … When we got to Sydney, which was only a week or so later, we got John Wood out and just recorded it. We did two shows in one night … It was very much thrown together. Things like ‘Something You’ve
Got’, which is a cover number, [was] a bit of a novelty.

  In fact, the Fairport Live album, drawn from London shows given by the Nine line-up in December, as well as the Sydney shows in January – and all the weaker for it – carefully maintained the pretence that the Fairport democracy could, and would, survive the addition of Sandy and her songs. In truth, once the decision had been made that Sandy should rejoin the band on a full-time basis, the set acquired Sandy solo material at the expense of some of the weaker work that separated the new band from its halcyon days.

  ‘Quiet Joys of Brotherhood’, ‘Solo’, ‘It’ll Take A Long Time’ and ‘Like An Old Fashioned Waltz’, the last of these usually performed solo, filled out Sandy’s half of the show. By the time she and the boys arrived in Los Angeles for a residency at the Troubador, a week on from the Sydney shows, her slot had already expanded to two-thirds of the set. In the mood to experiment, the band attempted to follow the music weaver through the likes of Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’, Buddy Holly’s ‘That’ll Be The Day’, Padraic Colum’s ‘She Moved Through The Fair’ and Sandy’s own ‘Crazy Lady Blues’. The likes of ‘John The Gun’ and ‘Solo’ also began to take on a life of their own.