Fotheringay, "2"
Apparently they do make them like this anymore. A mere 38 years after it was begun; Fotheringay's second album is released. Another chance to hear the voice of Sandy Denny, famously described as like 'a clean glass in a sink full of dirty dishes.'
Fledg'ling Records
It might be heretical and fogeyish but sometimes I wish that anyone coming out with supposedly new or alt-folk could do a few standards first. Just to prove they can do it. Come on, even Picasso did some fantastic conventional portraits before embarking on the radically different path down which his imagination led.
But I digress and rant. Fotheringay were the first of Sandy Denny's post-Fairport Convention projects. After one album, produced by Joe Boyd, the group dissolved and Denny embarked on recording under her own name. For the uninitiated, Fairport Convention has been compared to a British version of The Band in that they respected and amplified folkroots to create an exciting new sound which illuminated the past. They included Richard Thompson, who, if music were gauged in sporting terms, is arguably Britain's best ever guitar player. Fotheringay lacked Thompson but they created their own intriguing balance between UK folk-rock and US country-rock that could play as well at the Queens Head, Belper, as at the Kerrville Folk Festival.
The opening song, an anti war epistle called "John The Gun" comes with the unwanted surprise of Sam Donahue's saxophone solo.It is said that he was in from Nevada, visiting his son Jerry, and Denny insisted he contribute. Fotheringay 2 has solid and subtle playing throughout but the highlight is Denny and her ability to create a majestic sound that lifts the mood far above the everyday. Trivia buffs might note that she remains the only singer to guest on a Led Zeppelin recording. On what may be her best version of "Wild Mountain Thyme" her voice sounds like a series of inspired sighs. Equally, with "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" she casts an intoxicating spell in the role of a kept, yet betrayed, woman. Her ballad singing can induce shivers on a humid 90 degree afternoon. A phrase sung by her hangs in the air like a sunlit spider's web covered in frost.
Denny also sang with The Strawbs (who first recorded her signature piece "Who Knows Where The Time Goes"). It is appropriate, then, that the last track here is a piece written by the Strawbs bandleader, Dave Cousins. Ironically, his composition "Two Weeks Last Summer" was one of the first songs he ever recorded, and yet Fotheringay's version is perhaps the most modern sounding of all the music on 2. Don't be fooled by the term ‘modern', though, as there is no concession to the 21st Century here - mainly because Jerry Donahue has completed this project in a seamless manner respectful of the roots and vision of his fellow original group members. His task was complicated since all lead vocals were originally recorded with the intention of being overdone and the master tapes were scattered across the archives of various record companies. I don't know if Donahue had final say in the cover art but the depiction of an embroidered number 2 that is not quite finished is modest and apt: for this record will never truly be finished.
Fledg'lng also carries the work of Shirley & Dolly Collins, Chris McGregor, Leon Rosselson, Davy Graham and many others. This tiny label has a catalog of music and information full of varied delights. The site links several discographies, such as those of Thompson and Robert Wyatt, as well as Martin Carthy's which is truly spectacular. We still don't know where the time goes, but this record sounds fresh and vital even though Trevor Lucas has been dead for almost 20 years and his lover Sandy Denny has been gone for three decades. Fotheringay 2 is a throwback, for sure, but to a time and place worth revisiting.
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