Sandy Denny | Artist
Alexandra Elene MacLean 'Sandy' Denny was an English singer-songwriter born 1947 in Merton Park, London. She was lead singer of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention on their finest albums, and was an accomplished solo artist. She has been described as "the pre-eminent British folk rock singer". Denny showed an interest in singing from an early age, influenced by her paternal grandmother who was a Scots Gaelic speaker and singer of traditional Gaelic songs. She attended Coombe Girls' School in New Malden and after leaving began training as a nurse at the Royal Brompton Hospital. She soon left nursing and enrolled in a foundation course at Kingston College of Art in September 1965. There she became involved with the folk club on campus with other folkies such as future Pentangle member, John Renbourn. After her first public appearance at the Barge in Kingston upon Thames, Denny began working the folk club circuit in with an American-influenced repertoire, together with UK folk songs. She made the first of many appearances for the BBC on 2 December 1966 on the Folk Song Cellar programme. Her earliest professional recordings were made in mid-1967 for the Saga label, featuring traditional songs and covers of folk contemporaries including her then boyfriend, the American singer-songwriter Jackson C. Frank. While she was performing at The Troubadour folk club, a member of Strawbs heard her and invited her to join the band. She recorded one album with Strawbs All our own Work which was released belatedly in 1973. The album includes an early solo version of her best-known composition, "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?." Sandy then left Strawbs to be replaced briefly by Sonja Kristina, who went on to be singer for Curved Air. Fairport Convention conducted auditions in May 1968 for a replacement following the departure of Judy Dyble, and Denny became the obvious choice, according to group member Simon Nicol. Beginning with What We Did on Our Holidays, the first of three classic albums she made with the band in the late 1960s, 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. Denny left Fairport in December 1969 to develop her own songwriting more fully. She formed her own band, Fotheringay, which included her future husband, Australian Trevor Lucas, formerly of the group Eclection. She rejoined Fairport for three more albums in 1973, after which she focused on solo work. Together with the surperb body of her work with Strawbs, The Bunch, Fotheringay and Fairport Convention, her standout solo albums include The Northstar Grassman and the Ravens (1971), Sandy (1972) and Like and Old Fashioned Waltz (1973), plus two archival releases; The Attic Tracks 1972-1984 (1995) and The BBC Sessions 1971-1973 (1997). Tragically Denny died on 21 April 1978 at the age of 31 years. The cause of death was brain damage caused by falling down stairs on several occasions. Towards the end of her life, with her marriage to Lucas on the rocks, Denny was exhibiting manic depressive behaviour and had become dependent on achohol and drugs. To this day Sandy Denny remains one of the most revered folk singers the UK has ever produced, and her work continues to influence fellow artists. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Denny at number 164 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. As a matter of interest, the photo on the cover of Fairport's album Unhalfbricking shows Sandy's parents, Neil and Edna Denny, outside the family home at 9B Arthur Road, Wimbledon, South London, with Sandy and the band visible through the garden fence, sitting on the lawn.
Artist Website: sandydennyofficial.com
Featured Albums: Sandy Denny
Related Artists: Strawbs, Fairport Convention, Fotheringay, Trevor Lucas, The Bunch
Collections: Women of Note
