Fotheringay

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Customer reviews

review by: AndyGB date: 2008-07-15 rating:
It's good but she got better...
Whilst I broadly agree with the other reviews, I must say that I don't think this is the highlight of Sandy's post Fairport career. Sandy's compositions and vocal style continued to get more varied and interesting, and also her post Fotheringay albums are sung entirely by her which is all to the good.

This album is held back by Trevor's performances (although i actually don't mind The Ballad of Ned Kelly, which is one of Trevors best songs.) when what one longs for is to finally hear Sandy writing and performing a whole album without compromises.

The Sandy penned songs and the traditional Banks of the Nile are naturally the standout tracks here: for one can't see how anyone in their right mind would thing Trevors Gordon Lightfoot cover would be the best thing here- that honour goes very clearly to Sandy's own 'The Sea' or the traditional Banks of the Nile- perhaps her finest vocal performance? Listening to the album now, It is obvious that Sandy's own compositions (and Banks of the nile) are timeless and unique, the other songs now seem for all their various charms, very dated and of the period. Proof if any were now needed that Sandy was and remains the greatest uk female vocalist and songwriter. Other than The Sea, Nothing More and The Pond and The Stream rank among her finest compositions.

This album for me is a much better disc than What we did on our holidays, but then again it really depends on what your looking for. For followers of Fairport rather than Sandy, this will probably be the album that will please them most out of her post Fairport career. For followers of Sandy, the best was yet to come.

As for the bonus tracks, Fotheringay's unreleased and incomplete second album will be released in the autumn of 2008, so Late November, Gypsy Davey and Two weeks last summer etc will be issued on that. The El pea version of Late November is actually released on the re-mastered Northstar Grassman and the Ravens- Sandy's first solo album.

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review by: date: 2008-01-07 rating:
Any chance of an upgrade?
Indeed, one of the indisputably great folk(rock) albums from the golden era of the late sixties and early seventies. For the moment, i'm having to content myself with my vinyl re-issue and the selection of tracks which appears on the superb "No More Sad Refrains" anthology of Sandy Denny's career.

Given that we have seen excellent upgrades of all the classic Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny and Richard/Linda Thompson albums, how about an "official" Island records upgrade of this one? This would enable the cd-buying public to have an expanded version of this record, with all the relevant out-takes and unused studio material. That would surely be more satisfying than the live material which currently fleshes out the Fledgling version. (Which i'm a bit loathe to buy, for this very reason.)

(Update 20/12/08: Looks as if i have had my answer, in the form of "Fotheringay 2". This features the kind of material which could/would have been used to flesh out the debut album.)

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review by: Billyjay date: 2007-05-10 rating:
Phew What a Corker.
I bought this album, finally, having pretty much exhausted all other Sandy Denny sources. I certainly wish I'd found it sooner.
If, like me, you are a fan of the Fairport Convention at their "What We Did On Our Holidays" and "Unhalfbricking" stage, then you will be mightily pleased with this album. In fact I would go so far as to say, that while it doesn't quite match up in terms of overall quality to the aforementioned albums, in terms of the Sandy Denny contributions, it may be that there is a greater concentration of superb material than can be found anywhere else (outside, perhaps, of a compilation album).

Sandy takes the lead on most of the songs (as you would both hope and expect) and the ones sung by Trevor Lucas suffer by comparison but are not terrible. One odd thing is that on some of the tracks the guitar playing is so like that of Richard Thompson's that I found myself pouring over the CD booklet to see if he was there as a guest performer(he was not).

The sound quality is in keeping with what you would expect of the era and the presence of hiss in some parts may actually indicate the absence of excessive noise filtering, which can have a deadening effect on the sound, rather than mastering from vinyl(as a previous reviewer suggested).

This is an excellent album and a must for anyone with an interest in Sandy Denny's music, and indeed, high quality music of the era.

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review by: rob_jessel date: 2006-04-09 rating:
They're not THAT bad...
I really can't add anything to the excellent review above. Fotheringay is the sort of album you'd want to be buried with so you could listen to it in the afterlife.

However, I wouldn't be as harsh as the previous reviewer. Yes, the Dylan cover is a little flat, but not disastrously so. And I don't think Ned Kelly is a stinker at all. I'd say Lucas was trying to hit the same note of gravitas as, say, Levon Helm on The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. I think, vocally at least, he pulls it off, though the guitar does grate a little.



review by: date: 2004-09-23 rating:
A timely reissue of a timeless album
Fotheringay's sole album was another one of those British folk-rock classics which had become almost impossible to locate on CD so top marks to Fledgling Records for finally making this album widely available again.

I'm guessing that you know that Fotheringay were the band that Sandy Denny formed after leaving Fairport Convention. Presumably she was unhappy with the band's forays into pure traditional music since 'Fotheringay' sounds a lot like 'Unhalfbricking'. The music is beautifully mellow and dominated by Sandy's crystal-clear singing and Jerry Donahue's tasteful, understated and skilful guitar playing. The album includes two of Sandy's finest compositions, 'The Sea' and 'Nothing More'. The former, in particular, is a masterful performance. There is also a traditional song, 'Banks Of The Nile', one of those slow ballads that suited Sandy's voice so well. However, not everything on the album is so good. Sandy's then-boyfriend, later husband, Trevor Lucas was given high prominence and two of his tracks, a rather indifferent Bob Dylan cover and the self-penned 'Ballad Of Ned Kelly' bring the standard right down. The latter, released on single to coincide with with the execrable Mick Jagger movie, is an absolute stinker, in fact. Having said this, the Lucas / Denny composition 'Peace In The End' is a great number in a hippy-singalong sort of way and Lucas's brooding reading of the Gordon Lightfoot song 'The Way That I Feel' is, to me, the highlight of the album.

This is quite a decent reissue, better than the old Hannibal one. The booklet is the usual high quality production that you expect from Phil Smee with some great photos and memorabilia but, surprisingly, no history. The live bonus tracks are a welcome surprise, although the recording quality is not the best. It is particularly interesting to hear 'Two Weeks Last Summer', a Dave Cousins song dating from Sandy's days with The Strawbs. I was a bit annoyed that they didn't include 'Late November', a song from a never-finished second album which appeared on an Island sampler called 'El Pea' (and various Sandy compilations since), as that would have finished the package off nicely. Finally, the sound quality is good enough, but far from audiophile with hiss noticeable in some of the quieter moments. Perhaps the CD was mastered from a vinyl copy.

'Fotheringay' is a quite excellent album and the absolute highlight of Sandy's post-Fairport career. I recommend this unreservedly.

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