This article was written in early 2005. The study of popular music, like every other branch of human knowledge, has now been sucked into the academy, and the article was designed for one of the new breed of academic journals serving this constituency – hence its rather elevated tone. It found no favour there: I was told I was trying to please too many people and had ended up by pleasing none. Since then I've learned that it did please a number of people whose opinions count for more than those of career-track academics with their eye on the next ‘Research Assessment Exercise’. In particular, after my article had appeared briefly on a Richard Thompson fansite, I was encouraged by very warm responses from Joe Boyd - Denny’s producer on the early Fairport and Fotheringay albums - and from Robin Frederick - the American singer-songwriter and friend in the ’sixties to Nick Drake and John Martyn, who drew my attention to parallels with Drake that had not occurred to me.

The last year has also brought some important additions to the bibliography. First among them must be Joe Boyd’s compellingly readable autobiography, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s (which, interestingly, also lingers over the Drake-Denny comparison). Britta Sweers’ study Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music offers what I believe to be the first technical analysis of Denny’s vocal technique, showing how her use of ornament, syncopation and speech rhythm augmented the musical effect while still supporting the sung text. Also for musicians, there was the long-anticipated appearance of Maartin Allcock's Complete Sandy Denny Songbook. John Harris, the hip young gunslinger of today’s rock journalism, published a lengthy - primarily biographical - piece in The Guardian when her solo albums were re-released by Universal-Island last year. On TV the BBC’s Folk Britannia series included a rare interview with Anne Briggs in which she spoke with undimmed admiration about her old friend. And, most recently, a two-hour DVD documentary has appeared, Sandy Denny Under Review – somewhat dry, heavy on talk, light on music, perhaps a tad reverential towards someone whose speaking voice, as her friends recall, was always on the edge of laughter, but evidence that interest is rising ahead of two upcoming dates in the calendar: the thirtieth anniversary of her death (April 2008) and, before that, what would have been her sixtieth birthday (January 2007). Visitors to MySpace and other outposts of the ‘blogosphere’ will also be heartened to discover how many young people are using these new media to record their enthusiasm for a musician who died before they were born.

Hindsight provokes a host of afterthoughts. There is a book to be written about Denny’s art. Whether by me, or by one of those whey-faced professors, I cannot predict. Perhaps the keenest insights can only come from those who knew her best, like Ralph McTell:

I first met Sandy in Les Cousins in the 1960s. She could be difficult. So many facets of her personality were in conflict with the inner one that emerged through her songs. She could be one of the boys on the surface, yet carry the ache of the artist’s responsibility just underneath. At her best, she was heartbreakingly beautiful, her smoky, sexy voice cracking in just the right place to touch the emotional heart of the song. At her worst, she stretched the patience of those who loved her to despair. Those who are really honest would not have been surprised that she died so young, possibly before her best work, but the tragedy of losing her leaves a gap that will never be filled. I still cannot listen to a whole album of hers all the way through. (Quoted in Chris Hockenhull, Streets of London: The Official Biography of Ralph McTell, 1997, pp96-7)

© Philip M Ward 2006