Fotheringay

[Mindwarper]

Hi all,

The Trevor Lucas thread brought up some interesting points.  One nice fellow emailed me with some wonderful Fotheringay info. I am quoting from his wonderful email.:

"From Clinton Heylin's Sandy Denny biography (NO MORE SAD REFRAINS), p. 130 & 273,
the songs for the second Fotheringay album were probably to be (not necessarily in the track order numbered here):
 
1.) Late November
2.) John The Gun
3.) Gypsy Davey
4.) Eppy Moray
5.) Two Weeks Last Summer
6.) Wild Mountain Thyme
7.) Bold Jack Donahue
8.) Bruton Town
9.) The Lowlands of Holland
 
The first five songs, and possibly one more, were recorded in the studio in November and December 1970 before the group broke up.  During Nov. 1970, they also did several BBC recording sessions ("live in the studio") which encompassed the rest of these songs, except for "Bruton Town".  A number of these have gotten released piecemail over the years on the several Sandy Denny box sets and anthologies.   There are also several "unauthorized bootleg" CDs which have a number or most of these songs (largely from BBC recordings and broadcasts of the recordings): part of SANDY AT THE BBC, WILD MOUNTAIN THYME, and POEMS FROM ALEXANDRA.  This last one is regarded as being of inferior sound quality to the first two.  The first one has some early FC songs and Sandy solo songs besides Fotheringay.  One thing I like about it is that it has some brief interviews with Sandy (and also one with Simon in 1970).  Four of the early FC songs are duplicates of what's on A CHRONICLE OF SORTS (an FC "unauthorized bootleg").
 
If you surf online to find "Sandy Denny Mailing List, FAQ's", you'll see a post from 8 Jan. 1998 "Fotheringay BBC" about Jerry Donahue's interest in reconstructing the second Fotheringay album as well as possible by using the best quality recordings available from the various sources.  Also, in 2004 when Fledg'ling reissued the FOTHERINGAY CD, they changed the bonus tracks from the previous CD issue of it.  To me, the only way this made sense was that the removed tracks would logically go on a reconstructed second Fotheringay album, so maybe they were looking ahead to that happening down the road.  Maybe they are now involved with the efforts to do it (just my guess).
 
Also to be noted is that Trevor's prominent vocal contribution is somewhat less on the second album than the first: he sings "Bold Jack Donahue" and the first part of "Eppy Moray".

 The 1991 Hannibal CD issue had "Two Weeks In Summer" and "Gypsy Davey" as bonus tracks.  The 2004 reissue deleted these two and instead had 4 live tracks recorded in Rotterdam in the summer of 1970: "Two Weeks Last Summer", "Nothing More", "Banks of the Nile", and "Memphis Tennessee".  Now, you would wonder, WHY would they remove "Gypsy Davey", which is a GREAT song?  This only makes sense if it is destined to re-emerge somewhere else, such as on a reconstructed Fotheringay second album, where it originally was supposed to appear.
 
Also to be noted, and perhaps you already know this, is that some of the Fotheringay songs were used (re-done) on Sandy's first solo album NORTH STAR GRASSMAN AND THE RAVENS.  I further heard that 2 of the songs on ROSIE had been Fotheringay recordings.   For use on Rosie, Pat Donalson's bass parts were replaced by Dave Pegg's.  (I'm not totally sure WHICH two on Rosie were the ones, but I'll figure it out; I only just heard about this.)
 
I hope this all is helpful to you; if you already know most of it, sorry for the duplication!
 
Cheers ///  Tom  "

I just want to thank Tom for the email. Well I want a box set of all Fotheringay including a dvd of the videos. I know there are at least 3. Plus any live material. Just thinking of a different version of John The Gun makes my giddy. Does anyone know more about any possible releases or unreleased tracks? Is it in the works? Is there a full concert of Fotheringay? More then three videos?  Inquiring minds 

[Alex Lyons]

Wonderful indeed, thanks Tom, and Michael for sharing it.

The two tracks reworked for 'Rosie' were 'The Plainsman' and 'Knights Of The Road' so you can add those to the likely second album, although I wonder if the latter would have made the cut.

[Stationary M25 Traveller]

Is this new DVD of any use ?

Sany Denny - Under Review

http://www.101cd.com/detail.aspx?productid=1503361

I have recently bought it, but not had time to watch it yet

[Mindwarper]

I've heard the Sandy dvd is multi reagon. So I plan on ordering it. But I haven't seen it.

No one except Alex and you seem interested in Fotheringay. Or at least this thread.  I'm so sad.

[Andy]

Plenty of people are interested in Fotheringay. There's no compulsion to participate in any thread here, though and you should read nowt into the number of replies.

[Sir Robert Peel]

I'm interested in Fotheringay and think that this topic, Tom's email, Alex's input and Andy's observation deserve a prize for the Best Bit of Peel's Talkawhile Week.  This discussion is an example of why we Fairport addicts gather together, isn't it?  The reason why I can't make any contribution is that I am a complete ignoramus and duffer in the Fotheringay Department - sorry about that.

Where's that cracking Youtube video of Fotheringay, by the way?  I can't find it.  Would someone be so good as to post a link into this thread, please.  It would be good to bundle up all that we know about Fotheringay into one place.

Guests and lurkers - perhaps you can help us here.  Come on board and contribute to the knowledge base with your snippets and eyewitness accounts, when you have the time.

Did anyone see them?

Thanks awfully

Sir Robert Peel
Global Moderator 

[PhilB]

Ahh Fotheringay. It brings a warm fuzzy feeling over me just thinking about that great band.

It would be fantasic if the second Fotheringay album could be released in some form. I have read occasionally that this is going to happen but nothing ever seems to come of it.

The youtube video of 'Too Much of Nothing' can be viewed at http://youtube.com/watch?v=GTae4KLRn9c

phil

[Paolo]

Fotheringay second album is virtuallly collectable as a partially pirate compilation. I think it's better than first one. Sandy vocals on Wild Mountain Thyme and Bruton Town are among her best ever. And Trevor on Eppy Moray is really convincing.

Sandy DVD is interesting as a documentary. Unfortunately there are very few Sandy's video performances available.

best

Paolo

[Stationary M25 Traveller]

Yes - there is not a lot of performance footage.

Enough to keep you interested though.

[WestWind]

I do not have the new Sandy dvd yet.   From what I have read, it is a well-done work; but I believe the musical performance content in it is excerpts of songs rather than complete songs.  (I think this avoids copyright issues.)  So it seems a nice addition to the collection, but it won't completely satisfy the hard core fan.

Cheers ///  Tom***

[Pat Helms]

No one except Alex and you seem interested in Fotheringay. Or at least this thread.  I'm so sad.

I would have replied, but if you scan through the "last replies" column you'll find that I'm bad luck for a thread, so much so that I've been mentioned (behind closed doors) as The Thread Killer!

And furthermore..........Ooops!  I did it again.  Sorry about that! 

PS:  Fotheringay?  Yeah, they were pretty good!

[Waterloo Wonderer]

Good to know

[Mindwarper]

I'm interested in Fotheringay and think that this topic, Tom's email, Alex's input and Andy's observation deserve a prize for the Best Bit of Peel's Talkawhile Week.  This discussion is an example of why we Fairport addicts gather together, isn't it? 

Thanks awfully

Sir Robert Peel
Global Moderator 

Its one of the reasons I'm here. Tom's email was so good I had to share it.  It looks like his alias is Westwind     I do wonder if a boxed set of complete Fotheringay is in the works.

[zygon]

2 weeks last summer and late november are 2 of my favourite songs!  It would have been a great album.

[Edthefolkie]

Wonderful stuff. And I can assure Mindwarper that many of us are interested in Fotheringay.

In response to Sir Robert,  I have no personal memories of the band although I saw Sandy several times a couple of years later.

But I do have a a snippet - I remember them on Radio 1! I was conducting my elderly Wolseley round the Nottingham ring road on the way home from work in 1970, when some Smashy or Nicey on the wireless announced  "Too much of Nothing" by Fotheringay. 

J*sus Chr*st, I thought - ex-Fairports on daytime radio? What next? I seem to remember that it was a "new single" spot and various lame brains were asked to comment - needless to say they couldn't get a handle on it and nobody knew the song was written by Bob Dylan. I was so annoyed I nearly ran into an old AEC in front  (I never was champion at keeping 'em rolling).