New Sandy Denny box set

[Philip W]

I wonder, will it include the recently released Fotheringay 2 album?  

According to what seems to be the final tracklisting -- now up at www.myspace.com/sandydenny --
yes it will (only the tracks with Sandy, of course).

[Jim]

its a very clever way to try to make people buy stuff they've already bought many times before
vinyl, cd's , cd reissues, compilations, small box sets, big box sets and now the  enormobox set with a few officialy unreleased tracks
i'm rapidly going off the idea of getting a remortgage for a couple of songs which no doubt will find their way on to future compilations

[Jonathan]

Amazon US has it for USD 325 (about 205 pounds), I looked on Amazon UK, it got it for the 145 pounds, plus I think it's 4 or 5 pounds shipping to the US.  So that's a savings of around USD 100 I think.  

The only Sandy I have on CD are "Sandy," "Live at the Gold Dust," the original, 3 CD box set that came out in the early 90's.  I thought about getting the live at the BBC that came out a couple years ago, or the Boxful of Treasures set, but never got around to it.  So, for me, it's worth it.  But, I know I'm in the minority here.

[JeremyRS]

On the Word blog here http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/fotheringay-0#comments Colin Harper says, amongst other things "I have it on pretty good authority that Universal will released a 3 or 4 CD set featuring the box set rarities/unreleaseds only a few months down the line..." so those who are tempted might be better off waiting a while.  He may be wrong of course...

[Jim]

On the Word blog here http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/fotheringay-0#comments Colin Harper says, amongst other things "I have it on pretty good authority that Universal will released a 3 or 4 CD set featuring the box set rarities/unreleaseds only a few months down the line..." so those who are tempted might be better off waiting a while.  He may be wrong of course...

i refer you to my musings a couple of posts above
rearrange the following words into a well known phrase or saying....off, rip.

whats the betting that not all the unreleased tracks make it onto the possible 3-4 cd set?

[Jules Gray]

Ah, fuggit.  I'm getting it.  I might get run over by a bus anyway.  

Jules

[Mark Donmall]

whats the betting that not all the unreleased tracks make it onto the possible 3-4 cd set?

Or that a couple of additional tracks not on the box set do make it. See Bruce Springsteen's 'Tracks' set followed by the one disc '18 Tracks' sampler with 3 extra track not on the box set for example. Or am I being too cynical?  

[Jules Gray]

Or that a couple of additional tracks not on the box set do make it. See Bruce Springsteen's 'Tracks' set followed by the one disc '18 Tracks' sampler with 3 extra track not on the box set for example. Or am I being too cynical?  

I sure as hell hope that doesn't happen!  

Jules

[Dave Brzeski]

Received from amazon today....

"Unfortunately, the release date for the item(s) listed below was changed by the supplier, and we need to provide you with a new estimated delivery date based on the new release date:

  Sandy Denny "Sandy Denny"
    Estimated arrival date: November 18 2010 - November 20 2010"

I'm starting to think it's going to be delayed & delayed until April 1st, next year, when they reveal it was just one huge practical joke. LOL

[Jamie73]

Has anyone read the various magazine features on Sandy? Surprised no-one has mentioned it as it's the first time she's appeared in so many publications at once. This month there's Rock and Reel, Record Collector (great piece by Kingsley Abbott), Froots...

[Jules Gray]

Received from amazon today....

"Unfortunately, the release date for the item(s) listed below was changed by the supplier, and we need to provide you with a new estimated delivery date based on the new release date:

  Sandy Denny "Sandy Denny"
    Estimated arrival date: November 18 2010 - November 20 2010"

I'm starting to think it's going to be delayed & delayed until April 1st, next year, when they reveal it was just one huge practical joke. LOL

I got the same message.  But looking at the Listening To thread, I see that one of our number already has their copy!  So I think we can presume that it's really real......

Jules

[Philip W]

Received from amazon today....

"Unfortunately, the release date for the item(s) listed below was changed by the supplier, and we need to provide you with a new estimated delivery date based on the new release date:

  Sandy Denny "Sandy Denny"
    Estimated arrival date: November 18 2010 - November 20 2010"

I'm starting to think it's going to be delayed & delayed until April 1st, next year, when they reveal it was just one huge practical joke. LOL

I got the same message.  But looking at the Listening To thread, I see that one of our number already has their copy!  So I think we can presume that it's really real......

Jules

I saw Andrew Batt (compiler of the Sandy box) last night at the Kirsty MacColl tribute gig and he told me the target release date is "second week of November". After halloween and before late November. Delays in Italy (printers, I believe). Oh yes, it's going to happen -- be in no doubt.    

[Jules Gray]

After halloween and before late November.

Ha ha!  I see what you did there!  

Jules

[Dan O.]

After halloween and before late November.

Ha ha!  I see what you did there!  

Jules

But of course !  

[samnitzberg (Sam)]

...Kirsty MacColl tribute gig...    

WHAT??? Where?  Any video or audio?  We'd never hear about this on this side of the Atlantic.

[Philip W]

...Kirsty MacColl tribute gig...    

WHAT??? Where?  Any video or audio?  We'd never hear about this on this side of the Atlantic.

Last night, Shepherd's Bush Empire, London: http://www.kirstymaccoll.com/information/news/index.htm
There were suggestions from the stage that it could become an annual event to mark her birthday. Anyway, better start a separate thread if we want to talk about the incomparable Kirsty! This one is about the incomparable Sandy.

[Dave Brzeski]

And it's delayed yet another week. At this rate it's going to be my Christmas present to myself. LOL

Unfortunately, the release date for the item(s) listed below was changed by the supplier, and we need to provide you with a new estimated delivery date based on the new release date:

  Sandy Denny "Sandy Denny"
    Estimated arrival date: November 17 2010 - November 19 2010

[GubGub (Al)]

Anyway, better start a separate thread if we want to talk about the incomparable Kirsty! This one is about the incomparable Sandy.

Interestingly Eddi Reader makes a direct comparison between them in the current issue of Word.

[neil fatea]

I've had the pleasurable task of reviewing the box set, so in a coals to Newcastle, preaching to the converted, pushing at an open door moment.

Everything about Sandy Denny (Box Set) is huge, it racks up over three hundred tracks over 19 cds and will be retailing for well over a ton. My first thought on going over the figures was, whose actually going to buy that? Most of Sandy’s follower’s will have pretty much everything on the set will they stump up the wodge to get the few tracks they haven’t already got ?
It’s also not like anyone that’s new to Sandy, is going to think, “I’ve got to give Sandy Denny a try, I know I’ll kick off with that 19 CD box set I saw advertised.” Ok there’s quite a few people like me that were just too young to be there at the start and have been drawn to her incredible voice and performances in latter years, but we’re not talking cheap here.
Then it occurred to me that this isn’t so much a box set as a festival  of Sandy Denny and suddenly it all makes sense. Most of the big festivals cost well over a hundred quid, but ignore the cost and look at the value. How many bands do you see at a festival and how much would it cost to see them individually?
This box set may be 19 cds long, but it’s also better value than buying 19 individual records, plus you get a whole host of goodies thrown in, a 72 page booklet, the sleeves are all gatefold specials, previously unseen photos, reproductions of items that were important in the Sandy Denny story. There’s  also a limited edition on top of the regular box, that for 100 people will come with a framed and individually signed print of the artwork by Phil Smee. Suddenly the value’s there.
I found it also helped to view the music as a festival, mentally splitting the box into stages. The band stage featuring, Fairport Convention, The Strawbs and Fotheringay, just think about that as a line up and then remember it’s Sandy’s voice of a generation that is carrying the lyric.
Then there’s the solo stage where the name Sandy Denny is right to the forefront, she takes responsibility for the whole kit and caboodle. Just hearing so much of her music back to back takes you off to a really special place, where once again music has meaning and is no longer just a sound track to your life.
The thing about box sets is that you do listen to them differently, you have invested in them and you set time aside to listen to them properly just like you did when you bought vinyl. Sandy Denny returns that dedication with a devotion that really only a handful of artists can.
In addition there’s also a third stage, which I’m going to call the experimental stage. This is where you’ll find most of the previously unreleased material, the demos of albums, home recordings, it’s a real chance to hear how songs developed, what changed because it might not have worked and what Sandy got up to sat at home with a guitar and a tape recorder.
In all honesty I don’t know how much of the ‘unreleased’ tracks are genuinely unreleased, I’m sure many have found their way onto bootlegs over the years, but to hear so many of them in one place really does give you a connection to the artist, even if there is an occasional quality gap because they were never meant to be heard. In many ways it the unreleased side that really lets you get under her skin.
As well as being a consummate singer, Sandy Denny was a great performer, both in the formal studio sense and live as well. Her live persona had another sparkling facet over her studio work, you get the sense of her living the songs on stage as she performed them.
As you listen to the tracks across this festival of Sandy Denny you really begin to understand what she squeezed into her tragically short life, how that impacted her songs and the way she made her music.
This is partly brought out on some of the interview material contained at the back end of the box, which also gives it a real context, you’ve been through many of the phases of her life in music and have that understanding of where she was when she recorded the interviews and where she went after them.
It’s been thirty three years since Sandy’s untimely death and during that time, I can’t think of an English female vocalist that has and continues to have such an influence as to how a genre of music is approached, heck even influenced and inspired many others that chose to take a different musical path. In some respects Sandy Denny liberated music  and blazed an attitude that made it easier for some of the names that followed.
I’m not going to review the music over the 19 cds, there is very little that I can add that hasn’t already been written, what I will say is that this box set brings together so many magical moments, I lost count of the times it stopped me in my tracks.
The amazing thing is is not just the tracks you haven’t heard before, that do that to you. Sandy Denny can do that with tracks you know to the bottom of your soul. There’s a spirit to her music that can’t help but move you. Maybe this is the place to start if you’ve never heard her before.  My ten year old had his first exposure to Fotheringay whilst I was listening to this box set and he just sat there transfixed.
The Sandy Denny Box Set does cover all aspects of one of the greatest singers of a generation, from her first recordings to her last studio recording and last home recording.  That track was called “Makes Me Think Of You”. I’ll drink to that Sandy.

[Jules Gray]

Thanks for that Neil!  Looking forward to getting mine next month (fingers crossed).

Jules