Wednesday, January 05, 2022

Sandy Denny would have been 75 years old today

One of the radio stations here in Israel just announced that had she lived, Sandy would have been 75 years old today. In her honour, they played "It'll take a long time", the opening track from her second solo album, "Sandy", from 1972. Tomorrow they promise to play many of her songs.

This isn't the first time they have played Sandy: quite often, the 'Unhalfbricking' version of "Who knows where the time goes" gets played, which is always a pleasure to hear.

I admit that apart from the songs that I have programmed onto my mp3 players (37 songs at various stages in her career: Fairport, Fotheringay, solo, Fairport, solo and a few demos), I don't hear that many outside of this group. I do have 'What we did on our holidays' and 'Unhalfbricking' ripped in their entirety on this computer to which I occasionally listen, but the unripped songs from 'Fotheringay', 'Fotheringay 2' and her solo albums remain a treasure that I am occasionally reminded of.

I find it hard now to listen to the early recordings, with all the beauty that they promised, and then remember her final recordings and what could be seen as a loss of talent and a tremendous waste. Who knows what would have happened had she lived; her early bandmates Richard, Simon and Ashley are still going strong whereas others have fallen by the way (Martin, Swarb, Trevor). Maybe at some time she would have regained her confidence and made good music?

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