SANDY DENNY

Rip It Up, Issue 12, 1 June 1978, Page 6

SANDY DENNY

With the death of Sandy Denny, the world has lost one of the finest exponents of folk and rock music ever, and a beautiful person besides. She suffered serious head injuries after falling down some stairs at a friend's house in London, and died in hospital. She first came to prominence in the 1960 s around the British folk clubs as a solo performer, before joining the Strawbs, with whom she recorded one album. In 1968, she joined Fairport Convention, performing alongside other British folk greats Richard Thompson, Ashley Hutchings and Simon Nicol. Always an innovator, she formed her own band, Fotheringay, in 1970, and their one album remains a folk classic. For the next four years, she pursued a solo career that saw her voted Britain’s top female singer two years running. Her albums were filled with passion and rich sentiment, particularly the late 1972 release, Sandy, which contains her best commercially-known number, "Listen, Listen." It still sends shivers down the spine, and time hasn’t eroded it one bit.

The earlier album, The North Star Grassman and The Raven is a more sombre

work, epitomised in the blazing anti-war song "John The Gun”. As a solo performer, Sandy never quite equalled her successes with Fairport Convention, as shown in the lukewarm reception she got at the Ngaruawahia Music Festival. But she later returned to play with Fairport, performing on the same bill, and blew everybody away. In 1974 she returned to fulltime live performing with Fairport, and her powerful voice and charming stage presence graced two excellent New Zealand tours. She could compose songs capable of bringing tears to your eyes; she could rearrange traditional material and make it her own; she could interpret Dylan nearly as well as Joan Baez. Nobody will ever replace Sandy. She had a voice that could make you feel warm on the coldest day of the year, and that’s how she should be remembered. "Listen, listen to him do, he is the one who is for you. Listen toiiim they say, he'll come and take us all away ” Duncan Campbell

Schtung Maidment Theatre Schtung draw heavily from classical rock, with their two keyboard players dominating the sound throughout. The show bears all the marks of long hours of rehearsal, with special emphasis on sound dynamics and sparse, but effective lighting. Atmosphere is what it’s all about here, weaving musical spells and creating images in numbers like "A Child’s Dream", conjuring up pictures of being chased by overgrown tin soldiers and teddy bears. It’s all very clever, with brooding vocals and solid walls of instrumental sound, but it still lacks something. Chewns, man. Ya gotta have some chewns what people can remember. Just when Schtung seems to be creating a melody line that just might stick to the

memory, they go off on another tangent. Abrupt shifts of mood keep you on your toes, but they don’t give you anything to latch onto. The most memorable number was the encore, a moody instr-umental called "Au Revoir", where a descending guitar line was started off and improvised on, with very effective use of phasing and reverb, spinning little waves of nostalgia all round the auditorium. The stage show is just fine, fellas, but the songwriting needs to be consolidated if you ever want to do anything more than write soundtracks for the Goodies or Ken Russell movies. Duncan Campbell