TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

A few weeks ago I read there was going to be a programme on the late, great, incomparable Sandy Denny on BBC R2 tomorrow (April 2), but I can see no sign of it on BBC website or Talkawhile. Does anyone know anything about this?

Thanks,

Michael

BBC Radio 2 will be broadcasting an hour long documentary on the life and times of Sandy Denny on Tuesday 22nd April.

that's only taken from an ebay listing of the new double CD but i presume it's correct.

Wow, I'll have to listen to that(or if it's late, it might be past my bedtime :( :'()

Details are now up on Bob Harris's website: http://www.wbbc.biz/pages/index.htm

Date confirmed as 22 April. I'm glad it doesn't clash with the concert at the Troubadour!

Contributors include Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Richard Thompson and Jerry Donahue.

Many thanks. I will be away but will make absolutely sure my family record it for me.

Michael

I fear it may be, young sir. Broadcast time is 10.30-11.30 pm, Tuesday 22 April, Radio 2.

Next week's Radio Times has quite a bit about it: an article by Stuart Maconie and a column (Radio Choice of the Day).

Bob Harris asks why she "never made the big time". "Fellow musicians interviewed here - including Robert Plant and Richard Thompson - believe that this was a combination of her torrent of insecurities and the powerful influence that her boyfriend had upon the decisions that she made." Uh-oh. More Trevor-bashing? That won't go down well in certain quarters.

No doubt it'll be on listen again anyway. Should be interesting.

Nice artcle in next weeks radio times written by Stuart maconie about this programme ;D

A huge question obviously but maybe like RT she never made the big time because she wouldn't comprimise on what she wanted to pander to the whims of record company executives.

Just an idea.

David W

Just reminding everyone (including myself) that it's tonight!

Jules

Gosh, I'm amazed to find no comments or reviews of this on the board this morning. Did anybody hear it? I confess that I forgot about it (I was watching Dirty Sexy Money) but will be checking it out on the Listen Again facility tonight and putting it on the Ipod for future listening.

I bleeding forgot and all.  Mind you, it was on a bit late for me.  Anyone got the "listen again" link?

Jules

I listened in.

I thought it was pretty good as a general overview of Sandy's work - for the listener not particularly familiar with her.

But for those who already know of her it didn't add anything.It seemed to over emphasise her insecurities perhaps as a way of explaining away her lack of commercial success. And Joe Boyd threw in his conspiracy theory like implication that perhaps the falls downstairs weren't 'accidental'

Still it was good to know that she was remembered in some way.

I, too, am surprised by the lack of posts about this programme.

I presently am not sure what I think about it as I listened after a particularly busy night.

Will listen again but after one listen I think it was pretty standard fair although at least they got lots of the actual people who knew and worked with her to offer opinion and reflection rather than the music journalist talking heads that are brought out when programmes such as this one are on television.

If it introduces more people to her music all well and good.

I don't remember any comparisons to Janis Joplin just ones to Joni Mitchell but I may be wrong.

That's right - no mention of Janis Joplin, plenty of Joni  Mitchell

One small bugbear was that when they discussed the Fotheringay album they rather strangely featured the tracks with Trevor as lead vocalist

A pretty good summary.
No real surprises and only snippets  of her music(frustrating, but understandable given the syle of the programme). It ended a bit abruptly with a trail for some R2 comedy programme which rather jarred with the tone of the previous hour, but well worth listening to nontheless.

S&J

Have I been asleep - I'm a R2 listener and all, but only just found out about this today.

Listen again link, for those that haven't got it yet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/doc_sandydenny.shtml

I did not like what Joe Boyd said about Jude.  >:(  He is quite obviously an arse :)

I thought that too.
I also thought there were other things said that weren't necessary. :-\

Yes but then he wasn't exactly there for Nick Drake either was he. Like I said... an arse :D

If anyone needs a copy of this  you can email me.

"The weak point to me was Judy the singer".  I think that's what Joe says.  He might possibly, in retrospect (and I'm a huge fan of the first album and Jude's later work), be wrong; he might not, but I'm not entirely sure that makes him an arse does it?  Presumably the rest of Fairport at the time, who removed Judy, and then soon replaced her with Sandy, are arses as well?  

Anyway, arse or not, Boyd's one of the very best producers I've ever heard....and he also seems to have the secret of eternal youth, so maybe he has sold his soul to the devil after all  ;)

I feel it was unnecessary to say that, I believe that without Jude they would not have considered another female band member and that Jude set that trend. Of course that is my opinion only. I just found it tacky and rude.
I can't speak for the rest of fairport can I ? But they appear to respect and honour Jude's work now. Plus fairport did not say anything negative about Jude on a public radio show and I doubt if they ever would.
Great producer yes, but I am not impressed with what he said, nor how he dropped Nick in his hour of darkness.

Not wanting to appear rude, I don't really want to discuss this further as if Ms Jude wasn't here so I will shut my noisy gob and be gone ;)

< disappears in a cloud of purple smoke >

As long as we're all being polite, constructive and expressing opinions as opinions rather than facts (as I think Joe Boyd was) then I'd like to think that the presence (for which we are all eternally grateful) of so many illustrious peoples on this wondrous discussion forum shouldn't limit, well, er, discussion from taking place....

I don't feel limited. It feels wrong to go further with this for me that is all :)

Strange there was no mention of her heavy drinking, which must at least contributed to the circumstances of her death. Can't be because of any fear of libel actions by her family, as it has been well documented elsewhere. That's not to cast any negative judgements either. The link between alcohol abuse/vulnerability/sensitivity and creative talent-even genius-is well established. Witness the documentary last Friday about the "Who" and that band's individual use of copius amounts of booze, etc. and the sheer power of the music they created.
Incidentally, was it just me that thought Robert Plant sounded just a little bit, well, "camp" in the Sandy programme?...

Well, I felt "limited" enough to take my initial response to PM, but I feel this needs to be said publicly:

Jude was not a weak link!!


errr... just my opinion, you know.  ;D

He sounded exactly like Robert Plant always sounds to me....warm, intelligent, and not at all 'rock star'ish.  I've always thought he's just about the nicest 'rock god' I've ever heard (of)....

What is camp?? Robert is the epitomy of testosterone on a stick :P

God I am argumentative today lol

Yeah - Easy Tiger!  LOL.

I haven't heard the programme yet, but will endeavour to do so by the weekend, and report back my opinion.  I'm very intrigued by all your comments so far.  However.................

It's amazing how most of those "ex" Fairport members left to do fantastically creative stuff afterwards.  Jude is no exception... I love that first FC album on it's own merits.  It has that lovely jangly feel to it, and some really great musicianship.  And such a youthful feel to it as well.   ::)  ;D

But there again, when it comes to our very own Astral Folk Goddess, we maybe a bit biased.

Not going to argue about whether Robert Plant is the epitome of anything on a stick but I personally think its his accent. He has always sounded as though his voice is yet to break when I've heard him speak. If not camp slightly feminine.

His singing voice is totally different.

As for Joe Boyd's comment I also heard that but didn't feel the need to comment. A decision was made a very long time - in my case a lifetime -ago. The Beatles got rid of Pete Best and you can still see posters in Liverpool pubs advertising him in bands as 'The Man who put the Beat into The Beatles'. Doesn't change anything. At the time the band if not children were not quite adults and as Lord Denning sort of said it is unfair to put today's values on yesterday's decisions.

My earlier comment about Janis Joplin eluded to the issues surrounding the, shall we say, hedonism. I hope this was sensitive reasons rather than hagiography. I like to know about people flaws and all. I'm not judging but people are often complicated and this can add to the story rather than detract from it.

Did he in fact drop Nick?  He moved back to the States, but made provision for Nick's albums to stay in print and that Hannibal was still a going concern so that Nick could continue to make records.  All he did was absent himself from producing the next one.  Should Joe have stayed in England to babysit Nick Drake?  I hardly think so.

Jules

F***!  I missed that one as well!

 >:(

Jules

He's good at tennis, as well.

Thanks for that Dave. I forgot all about it too. ::)

Quite right, imho....the guy was clearly ill. It's hardly anybody else's fault when that's the case, is it?  It's so easy to blame...and I come from a family badly effected by mental health issues as well...

Chris Blackwell would have carried on releasing Nick's albums as he loved the man's music so i dont know what the beef with Joe Boyd is
 Nick wasnt a well man long before he died and his records became increasingly bleaker, and less commercially viable, as he went on

No he shouldn't have stayed....  < shuts up >

;)

Not a bad programme at all actually. No new revelations but that's hardly surprising after all this time. And I must compliment Simon Nicol on his measured contribution.

One thing that did p*ss me off a bit was the quote from somebody about Neil Denny, Sandy's dad, being working class and uptight. Err... for a start, anybody seen the size of the Denny garden in Wimbledon? (on the Unhalfbricking sleeve) Working class, do me a favour tosh.  

EVERYBODY's parents were uptight in those days. I remember my Dad's reaction, God rest him, when Jimi Hendrix popped up on the Lulu Show ("what the bloody hell is THAT", etc., etc). His upbringing and experience simply did not equip him to cope with the sixties (sorry Dad, pomposity alert)

Vary rarely is the possibility entertained that Sandy's parents were worried about her. Mums and dads do this about their offspring! I mean, can you imagine their reaction to chaps like Alex Campbell coming round to pick up their daughter for instance?

Don't forget Neil Denny effectively lost his daughter, son and wife to show business. Not nice.

PS I don't think Joe Boyd could have saved Nick Drake, however hard he tried. Judge not, lest ye be judged as somebody said.    

Well said, Edthefolkie

You're exactly right about the worry of the parents.  :)

So, forgive my ignorance, but what did his son and wife do and how did he lose them?

Jules

It was Bob Harris who described her Dad that way, and he did know Sandy from quite early on. You can be a working class Scot and end up living in a big house in Wimbledon, you know.

Somebody may have mentioned this previously, but if you go to the Sandy Denny site on Myspace, on the latest blog there is a link, where you can download the entire program and burn it to cd, if you are into that kind of thing, obviously I am not, but I imagine some folks might be?

Hang on, Ed, that doesn't sound right. According to the biography we're not supposed to mention, 'at the time, the Dennys were living on one floor of the grand house whose garden appears behind them... Neil Denny remembers, “I spoke to the owner, who lived on the ground floor, and I said, ‘Would you mind if they used the garden?’” The owner didn’t mind."'

Sorry about your Italian jacket. One of several casualties from that night in the Troubadour!

Oh God Philip, thanks for pulling me up there...I never got the chance to read the P*m*la text so I didn't realise that garden didn't belong to the Denny family. I've been looking at that sleeve for nearly 40 years now and didn't pause to think that photo shoots don't necessarily take place in artistes' own houses.

And indeed you can be a working class anybody and get to own a big house! And a jolly good thing too. Some of my best friends etc etc....

I still think my point about Sandy's parents is valid though. My own parents used to worry a lot about me when I lived in the Smoke - however as a friend's mum said "Oh they'll be all right as long as they stick to the beer and keep off the pills and the spirits!"  Well, er yes. She'd never tried Fullers ESB or been to one of our parties though. And now of course I worry about my kids - one came home from town with a split lip the other day, only two stitches thank the Lord.

And I ain't bovvered about my jacket cos it was a great evening and most of the stains came out. Maybe I can wear it to my retirement do in a couple of weeks and REALLY trash it!