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Sunday, January 26, 2014

Fotheringay - BBC Radio Sessions 1970 (Bootleg)



Size: 255 MB
Bitrate: 320
mp3
Found Near the Moon
Some Artwork Included

Very Rare BBC Radio Sessions off air recordings of varying quality Apr-Nov 1970. A mixture of AM/FM they are mostly perfectly listenable to. No noise reductions applied. Quality of 'Peace in the End' is poor but I know of no better version.Includes interviews with Sandy and those who knew her. Some song titles appear more than once, all are differing versions/ or broadcasts. These tracks are an invaluable resource to Sandy Denny fans. Some tracks also appear on Boots "Wild Mountain Thyme","Poems from Alexandra","Sandy at the BBC".

Fotheringay was a short-lived British folk rock group, formed in 1970 by singer Sandy Denny on her departure from Fairport Convention. The band drew its name from her 1968 composition "Fotheringay" about Fotheringhay Castle, in which Mary, Queen of Scots had been imprisoned. The song originally appeared on the 1969 Fairport Convention album, What We Did on Our Holidays, Denny's first album with that group.


Two former members of Eclection, Trevor Lucas and Gerry Conway, and two former members of Poet and the One Man Band, Jerry Donahue and Pat Donaldson (bass), completed the line-up responsible for what was long assumed to be the quintet's only album. This folk-based set included several Denny originals, notably "Nothing More", "The Sea" and "The Pond and The Stream", as well as versions of Gordon Lightfoot's "The Way I Feel" and Bob Dylan's "Too Much of Nothing". Though, during the year of its original release, the album featured in the UK's two music papers' Top 20 (Melody Maker and NME), it did not meet commercial expectations, and pressures on Denny to undertake a solo career — she was voted Britain's number 1 singer (two years consecutively) in Melody Maker's readers poll — increased. The album peaked at No. 18 in the UK Albums Chart.

Fotheringay disbanded in January 1971, during sessions for a projected second album. Some of its songs surfaced on Denny's 1971 debut solo album, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. Lucas, Conway and Donahue joined Fairport Convention in 1972 to record the Rosie album (on which some Fotheringay material was also used). However, Conway played on three tracks only and began session work afterwards. Both Conway and Donaldson have worked with Richard Thompson, amongst many others. Lucas and Donahue stayed with Fairport (the Nine album came out in 1973) for another couple of years, with Denny rejoining in 1974. This line-up recorded two additional albums: Fairport Live Convention (re-titled A Movable Feast in the US) and Rising for the Moon. Denny, along with Donahue and Lucas, left the band in December 1975. Conway eventually joined a reformed Fairport in 1997.


In 2007, the BBC announced that Donahue would be attempting to complete the abandoned project (which he accomplished using previously unheard takes from the original archived tapes). Permission had finally been granted and the work was completed by summer of the following year. The resulting album, titled Fotheringay 2, was released by Fledg'ling Records on 29 September 2008.

SANDY DENNY:
Alexandra Elene MacLean "Sandy" Denny (6 January 1947 – 21 April 1978) was an English singer and songwriter, perhaps best known as the lead singer for the folk rock band Fairport Convention. She has been described as "the pre-eminent British folk rock singer".

After briefly working with British folk band the Strawbs, Denny joined Fairport Convention in 1968, remaining with that band until the end of 1969. She formed the short-lived band Fotheringay in 1970, releasing one album with them (another unreleased album surfaced over thirty years later), before focusing on a solo career. Between 1971 and 1977, Denny released four solo albums: The North Star Grassman and the Ravens, Sandy, Like an Old Fashioned Waltz, and Rendezvous. She is also noted as the only guest vocalist on a Led Zeppelin studio album, when she shared a duet with Robert Plant for "The Battle of Evermore" on Led Zeppelin IV (1971).

Denny was born on 6 January 1947 at Nelson Hospital, Kingston Road, Merton Park, London. She studied classical piano as a child. 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.

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. 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.


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, 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. 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. 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. While she was 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 was released belatedly in 1973 credited to Sandy Denny and the Strawbs: All Our Own Work. The album includes an early solo version of her best-known (and widely recorded) composition, "Who Knows Where the Time Goes". A demo of that song 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.


After making the Saga albums with Alex Campbell and Johnny Silvo, Denny looked for a band that would allow her to stretch herself as a vocalist, reach a wider audience, and have the opportunity to display her songwriting. She said, "I wanted to do something more with my voice." After working briefly with the Strawbs Denny remained unconvinced that they could provide that opportunity, and so she ended her relationship with the band.

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. According to group member Simon Nicol, her evident personality and musicianship made her stand out from the other auditionees "like a clean glass in a sink full of dirty dishes". Beginning with What We Did On Our Holidays, the first of three albums she made with the band in the late sixties, 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. She brought with her the traditional repertoire she had refined in the clubs, including "A Sailor's Life" featured on their second album together Unhalfbricking. Framing Denny's performance of this song with their own electric improvisations, her bandmates discovered what then proved to be the inspiration for an entire album, the influential Liege & Lief (1969).

Denny left Fairport Convention in December 1969 to develop her own songwriting more fully. To this end, she formed her own band, Fotheringay, which included her future husband, Australian Trevor Lucas, formerly of the group Eclection. They created one self-titled album (a second left unfinished in 1970 was finally released in 2008) which included an eight-minute version of the traditional "Banks of the Nile", and several Denny originals, among them "The Sea" and "Nothing More". (The latter marked her first composition on the piano, which was to become her primary instrument from then on.) The group dissolved when producer Joe Boyd left to take up a job at Warner Brothers in California.

Fotheringay BBC Sessions featuring Sandy Denny.

Band Members:
Sandy Denny
 Trevor Lucas
 Gerry Conway
 Jerry Donahue
 Pat Donaldson

Disc 1 
01. Intro to First broadcast by Fotheringay
02. The way I feel (1970-04-02)
03. Nothing More (1970-04-02)
04. The Sea (1970-04-02)
05. The Ballad of Ned Kelly (1970-04-02)
06. The Banks of the Nile (1970-04-02)
07. Too Much of Nothing (1970-04-02)
08. The Ballad of Ned Kelly (High Male Harmony)(1970-04-13)
09. OUtro John Peel DJ on Ballad of Ned Kelly
10. The Sea (1970-04-13)
11. Intro Banks of the Nile
12. Banks of the Nile (1970-04-13)
13. Nothing More (1970-04-13)
14. Outro Nothing More (1970-04-13)
15. The Way I Feel
16. Interview
17. The Sea
18. Silver Threads and Golden Needles (1970-05-05)
19. Intro Peace in the End
20. Peace in the End (1970-05-05)
21. Too Much of Nothing (Beat Club Bremen)

Disc 2
01. Intro Farewell Fotheringay broadcast Folk on One (1970-11-12)
02. Eppy Moray
03. Sandy on Eppy Moray
04. Trevor on Fotheringay
05. Intro Gyspy Davey
06. Gypsy Davey 
07. Intro Bold Jack Donahue
08. Bold Jack Donahue
09. Reasons for breakup of Fotheringay
10. The Ballad of Ned Kelly
11. Interview Robin Denslow
12. Intro Lowlands of Holland
13. Lowlands of Holland
14. Interview Karl Dallas
15. Banks of the Nile
16. Gypsy Davey (1970-11-15)
17. Bold Jack Donahue
18. John the Gun
19. Wild Mountain Thyme (Will you go Lassie go)
20. Eppy Moray (different Source with Intro voiceover)

(((((((((( NEW LINKS 2015-01-16 ))))))))

Part 1: Link
Part 2: Link
ot
Part 1: Link
Part 2: Link
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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great Post but unfortunately the first 5 Tracks are missing from Disc 1.

M

Anonymous said...

yep, tried it twice but Disc 1 starts at track 6...

Stephen said...

What a great thing this is. I never knew it even existed before now. Thanks Chris.

(The first 5 tracks seem to be more or less duplicated further on, just played on a different day, maybe.)

John the Gun is great though, isn't it?

Thanks again,

Stephen

Anonymous said...

thanks for the update! Wonderful atuff...

Henning2804 said...

Fantastic if new material should pop up with this band - the most promising of them all.....

jbl said...

Besides the 1st five tracks from disc 1, I can't extract track 6 from disc 2 (Gypsy Davy) I get a message "file is Broken". Besides that it's wonderful to have these recordings in one place. Thanks Chris!

Anonymous said...

Sandy Denny - Box Set\Disc 05\04-Sandy Denny-Peace In The End.mp3

simonthecat said...

I fell in love with Sandy Denny's voice the first time I heard it, but I did the same with Maddy Prior and Linda Thompson too. This is a wonderful post

E Craig said...

Great Blog! Just heard her first solo album.....then found your post. Great addition. Thanks.

Unknown said...

Besides the 1st five tracks from disc 1, I can't extract track 6 from disc 2 (Gypsy Davy) I get a message "file is Broken". Besides that it's wonderful to have these recordings in one place. Thanks Chris!

Wail said...

Please can you reup