Profile in Music: Richard Thompson & Sandy Denny

When the young dynamic duo made Fairport Convention one of the most influential bands in the world.

This August, on vacation/staycation, I’ve set aside the daily hot news and political takes and cool music videos to dig a little deeper, sometimes by re-visiting career-in-music tributes from last spring. Today, in this summer re-run, I honor two Brits, concentrating on just 1967 to 1970 and their short but sensational time together with seminal band Fairport Convention, as (in my view) the finest vocalist and greatest guitarist of the era across the pond. But first: the usual political cartoons. Then: share, comment, subscribe (it’s free).

Richard Thompson / Sandy Denny 1967-1970

Today’s joint tribute is a natural since I’ve just finished a fine bio of Sandy by Mick Houghton and Richard’s new memoir, Beeswing (in which she plays a key role, of course). Thompson testifies that not only was Sandy “the most important singer of my generation, no one has come along to touch her since.” Of course, we hailed both of them during my own formative years at Crawdaddy in the 1970s. Sandy, sadly, would pass away in 1978 at the age of thirty-one.

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By 1967, Fairport had already launched with 19-year-old prodigy Richard Thompson as lead guitarist and his girlfriend, Judy Dyble, as singer. They produced a mixed-bag first album that began to draw notice, though with no RT originals. Sandy Denny, meanwhile, was becoming a staple in the folk clubs and recorded a few songs released to small audiences, including, below, “Milk and Honey” by a boyfriend—the talented, tormented, badly scarred (in a fire) and soon to be legendary, Jackson C. Frank.

Sandy briefly joined the folk-rock group The Strawbs, then little-known. Meanwhile, the Fairporters decided the vocals of Judy Dyble (now Richard’s ex-) did not match the instrumental prowess of the rest of the band. They auditioned Sandy, who in her usual ballsy manner told them she was auditioning them. In any case, they hired her after one tune. She had started writing her own songs—rare for a woman in Brit folk circles—such as this slightly jazzy stunner, “Autopsy,” below, live on the BBC, with some great RT fills. No auto-tuning needed for our gal Sandy. The aurora was rising behind her already. She had just turned twenty-one….

The group recorded their first album with the new singer, What We Did On Our Holidays, which was indebted to American folk, rock and folk-rock, but also included Sandy’s phenomenal take on the Irish classic “She Moves Through the Fair.”

The band had wisely secured acetates of songs not yet released by couple of writers across the pond named Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Here, again live on BBC, we have Joni’s “I Don’t Know Where I Stand.” With the usual exciting RT guitar adds….

And a second Joni follows, the little-heard “Eastern Rain,” with odd, innovative RT intro suggesting some kind of Eastern sound…

And here’s a Dylan cover, which some consider one of the greatest by anyone ever, “I’ll Keep It With Mine.” I can also very strongly recommend their version of Bob’s then-obscure (link here) “Percy’s Song,” live.

RT started writing new tunes as well, such as the prototypically dark “Meet on the Ledge,” which he saw as a possible hit single, though that didn’t quite happen….

Sandy continued penning her own tunes, and one, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes,” would gain her wide notice when Judy Collins recorded it for a best-selling album. (Nina Simone, among others, also covered it.) Fairport recorded it for their breakthrough second album with Sandy, titled Unhalfbricking (a name she made up). And that’s her parents, on the album cover, with the group in the park—plus, the song, below….

Richard, like Sandy, grew even more determined to write his own songs, and his “Genesis Hall”—about impoverished squatters—would become an RT classic (with Sandy delivering, below, as usual). Note on the opening line: “My father he rides with your sheriffs.” Yes, RT’s dad was a London detective!

By this time, Fairport had obviously abandoned its focus on American roots music—partly because of Sandy’s Brit folk leanings and Richard’s recognition that The Band, even more accomplished than his group, had almost made a mockery of borrowings from abroad. For “A Sailor’s Life” on Unhalfbricking they hired fiddle master Dave Swarbrick and the result—featuring several minutes of breathtaking RT/Swarb jamming—invented a new form of music: British trad-rock. The following album, Liege & Leaf, continued in that vein, featuring the grand old bloody tale of “Matty Groves,” with Richard’s licks driving it along and again with a lengthy jam. You think Sandy had some range as a vocalist? Marvel:

Fabulous Sandy and Richard interplay on that album’s “Reynardine.”

And then, with happier message, and co-written by Sandy, below, each musician gets welcomed to the party, “Come All Ye.”

By the time of that album’s release, however, Sandy was getting ready to exit for a solo career—Fairport’s new trad focus left little room for her originals. Before that happened she was fired over her reluctance to tour. (All would regret later.) So perhaps it’s apt to use Richard’s “Farewell, Farewell” to close this chapter.

Sandy, both brassy and tragically insecure, felt in the end that she was not quite ready to go solo—so she formed a new group, Fotheringay (named for one of her finest early songs), with boyfriend—later husband—Trevor Lucas and guitarist Jerry Donahue. Sandy started writings most songs on piano, on which she had been classically trained. Their first album appeared in 1970. A second was aborted when she left the group. Here’s a video of their astounding live version of her song about former bandmate Richard Thompson, “Nothing More.” Linda Thompson—one of Sandy’s best friends and future wife of RT—told me recently that it captured the Richard of that period precisely, “like a Polaroid snapshot.”

Richard stuck with Fairport for one more album—they did not, could not, replace Sandy—and then set out on his own as well. But he would appear as a guest on many of Sandy’s solo albums to come. He married Linda and recorded several albums with her revered to this day, and a long line of excellent solo discs since. As great as Linda was, she has always put Sandy on a higher pedestal. Sandy, with her solo career stalled, would abuse drugs and drink, and suffer a fall in 1978 leading to her death. Here’s Richard’s final Fairport original, in 1970, “Now Be Thankful.”

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Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His new film, Atomic Cover-up, just had its world premiere and is drawing extraordinary acclaim. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.