I do think the No Grey Faith album is excellent, and would recommend it highly as well. I'm curious as to the strong statement of dislike for the VC album, and wonder if there is a particular aspect that bothers you (i.e., do you think Vicki's voice is ever suitable for the Sandy material, but just can't take a whole album of her doing those songs, or do you fault the arrangements, etc)?
This whole discussion reminds me that I have absolute faith that a tribute album of different artists covering Sandy's songs
could be a wonderful thing, simply based on knowing how much I've enjoyed hearing Mary Black's version of By the Time It Gets Dark, RT's take on John the Gun from "Georgia On My Mind", Whippersnapper's "One Way Donkey Ride" and others. I'm not sure such a tribute album should get as far afield as some of the suggestions on this thread, but I do find the dscussion interesting, and hope others have as well.
So I do reject the theory that the Sandy songs are too personal/idiosyncratic to hold up to various treatments, even as I acknowledge these alternate versions probably never would/could/should best the most definitive Sandy versions. They certainly can rise to the great heights of their intrinsic lyric strengths under various musical and vocal interpretations, as I've seen/heard many times in the past and hope to see happen many times in the future.
