FIFTY3FRIDAYS: REMEMBERING SANDY AND DAVE
- 16 hours ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 8 minutes ago
While this column chiefly focuses on new music largely from independent and grassroots artists, at times we also recognise a past legend or celebrate an anniversary closer to the world of mainstream music. Today, we mark the passing of two of my favourite artists of all time: Sandy Denny who we fondly remember this week and the remarkable Dave Mason who died on Sunday, aged 79.
Tuesday 21 April marked 48 years since the tragic, untimely death of Sandy Denny, whose wonderful work with Fairport Convention and as a solo artist has fully stood the test of time. She is rightly recognised as one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, certainly within her genre. Her daughter, Georgia Rose Lucas, has used AI in a creative and positive way to create a video to commemorate her mum this week. Georgia’s digital art builds on Sandy’s fascination for Mary Queen of Scots and how her story became interwoven with her mother’s, through her song “Fotheringay”.
As she approaches the anniversary of Sandy’s death, her daughter explains: “I always think of this day coming, several weeks before - it was to be the most defining day of my life.” From Fairport’s second album, What We Did On Our Holidays, “Fotheringay” was the first of Sandy’s songs recorded with the band for the album released in December 1968 when she was just 21. Sandy’s premature death in 1978, after an accident at home, was a tragic loss to her family, friends, and the whole music world. What made Sandy Denny such a great singer was the emotion she put into her work and her characteristic rustic timbre, combining purity with the ability to add power when called for as well as the softest clarity.
You can read about Sandy’s seminal song, “Who Knows Where The Times Goes” and her work on the greatest folk-rock album of all time, Liege & Lief, HERE and HERE.
Photo of Rob Baker by Carol Keane
Steppping next into the realm of new muisc, as readers of our 30 January issue will already know (thank you, Sid & Doris Rocker of Neasden) Reluctant Bob & The Lonely Lovers is the current project of the gifted Dublin-based songwriter and producer Robert Baker. Taking a break from heading up the stellar indie-pop quintet, The Crayon Set, and aided by the fine musicians who make up the Lonely Lovers, Robert combines psychedelic inspirations with airy melodies to create music to lose yourself in. His latest single is another little gem.
Out this week, “Just Love” is the third single from the band, working towards a debut LP release later this year. The song has a nostalgic ring to it, with a feel of the classic sunny pop of the 60s. Robert applies a modern twist to things in a wistful tale of knowing, unrequited love. Gently self-deprecating humour (“They’re not tears, I was chopping onions”), lilting melody lines and a persuasive chorus all combine to create a dreamy collage of honourable failure. Robert’s soft croon adds a lovely warm touch to offset the song's underlying piquancy.
Photo of Annick Odom by Lauren Bowlin Photography
From Ireland to Morgantown, West Virginia, USA now where we find the multi-talented Annick Odom described as a performer-composer, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, crankie maker (an old storytelling art form), storyteller and square dance caller. With Belgian-American heritage and roots in both Appalachian balladry and classical music, Annick spans a number of genres musically, turning her hand to experimental composition, playing in folk bands, chamber ensembles, orchestras and an electro-acoustic duo. Somehow, she found time to record an album, Linen of Words, released this month!
The LP blends Appalachian ballad tradition with contemporary composition, with a collective of 20+ musicians from jazz, classical, old-time string band and Sacred Harp communities featured on the record. Taken from the album, “Amity and Lone Pine” was co-written with singer-songwriter Tessa Patterson who adds vocal harmonies on the track. Annick takes the lead vocal and plays double bass while guitars and percussion add brushed texture. Referencing a highway exit for Amity and Lone Pine just before Pittsburgh, the song carries a graceful poignancy highlighted in Annick and Tessa’s beautiful vocal interplay and underscored by sympathetic instrumentation.
A change of pace next as we cross the Atlantic back to blighty and land in Brighton where we find Cello, a post-punk songstress who once studied as a cellist at the Junior Royal College of Music in London. This could be why she is followed on Instagram by ace cellist Jocasta Mudge, who works with Kate Walsh among others. Anyhow Cello seems to have put the instrument away to focus on her own brand of original music and reportedly cultivate beautiful organic vegetables. After blazing on to the scene with her debut single, “Vitamins”, Cello is back with her latest offering.
The blistering does-what-it-says-on-the-can new single from Cello is entitled “We Do What We Want (When We Want When We Want To).” Ooh, I love a bracketed song title. The track is a second cut from her forthcoming album Kung Fu Disco. It opens with a rebellious scowl: “Yeah, we ain’t coming back to the shack, out the back” and races along for 2 mins 18 seconds of a rallying call for defiant youth. The timing is spot on throughout, there is light and shade to counter the frantic stuff and all the beats are roundly hit. Loud, proud, unapologetic and catchy as they come, I absolutely love it.
Photo of Dave Mason from public domain (BBC)
Dave Mason – R.I.P
We close with a chapter that started for me in 1967 when Dave Mason co-founded Traffic with Steve Winwood, Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi. I bought the band’s debut album Dear Mr Fantasy and remember watching Traffic on Top Of The Pops when “Hole In My Shoe” hit the charts. It was the first song Dave Mason wrote and may have become a bit of a millstone as Dave had an in-out relationship with Traffic thereafter. With a nursery rhyme melody, the song includes a spoken word part by Island Records boss Chris Blackwell's stepdaughter with a little story about a giant albatross. It is a song very much of it's era; one which takes you there.
"Hole In My Shoe" is not though typical of Dave's creative output. He went on to enjoy a fulsome career as a producer, session and in-demand touring musician while releasing plenty of new material in his own right, spending most of his time in the US. Dave Mason passed away on 19 April aged 79
