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| Artist: Fotheringay
Label: Fledg'ling UK
Category: Music
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $12.88
You Save: $7.10 (36%)
New (24) Used (7) from $11.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 6209
Format: Import
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
EAN: 5020393306621
ASIN: B001EN1QP0
Release Date: September 30, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-6 of 6 | | « PREV | | |
 all the flowers of the mountain October 2, 2008
20 out of 23 found this review helpful
At last, it's here... and I think it was very well worth the wait.
Listening to this with headphones and spending as many hours a week as I do doing digital sound editing, it's apparent to anyone with ears to hear just what a labor of love this must have been for Jerry Donahue... these tracks are painstakingly reconstructed from a myriad of master tapes, with the greatest effort and most meticulous care taken to present the thing as close to "as it might have actually been in 1971" as you could ask for, and after hearing it through a few times the utter devotion that went into it just pours forth from the music like the honeyed bourbon of Sandy's vintage, vulnerably velvet voice.
I have heard almost all of the songs presented here in BBC transcription versions... maybe someday Virgin will do another of their "Complete BBC" sets (the Fairport and Sandy Denny ones are a must-must-MUST-have) on Fotheringay and those live-in-the-radio-studios takes will see the light of day. But forget about that for now... when I heard this it was like hearing the songs on a real album for the first time; the overdubs (particularly the vocals, which add a subtle-yet-essential dimension not as fully explored on the first -- and to this point what was the only -- Fotheringay record) and the way Jerry stripped it all together into a cohesive document make this sound holistic as a sophomore effort, in that you hear how their sound was developing after the touring and the debut album. That this can be possible fully 38 years after the tracks were recorded, and literally decades after the main singers/songwriters of the group are deceased, is a testimony to the Herculean caliber of achievement this CD represents.
There's not a filler track here either, it's as potent a progression as the (jaw-dropping) first one from this band. If I had to cite highlights I would go with the never-before-heard version of "Silver Threads and Golden Needles," which Sandy slows down to half speed so she can better wrap the song around her finger... much like the wedding ring the lady in the lyrics is trying to slide off of hers. Also the take of "Two Weeks Last Summer," with some marvelous background voices and Sandy just at maximum moody willow, k-i-l-l-i-n-g it vocally and making David Cousins a very proud Strawb for having written it. I'll go way out there and suggest that if some modern DJ/electronica character like Royskopp remixed this song, it might be a dancefloor smash.
Trevor Lucas really shines on this CD; there's a great balance between he and she and TL proves out as every bit Sandy's equal in terms of writing, inhabiting and carrying a good song to where it's worthy of going. There's a take of "Knights of the Road" here (one of the great songs to think about if you're ever making a compilation for a truck driver) that sounds like the basic track was reworked a while later for the Fairport "Rosie" album, but with a different vocal and production that suit the song well and make it seem more a Fotheringay song than a Fairport song, somehow. "Bold Jack Donahue" is a traditional Australian waltz-ballad about the outlaw, prison-breaking outback ranger that Lucas just OWNS, especially given his native roots Down Under. And I am loving Trevor's "Restless," which could've been a laid-back country-rock hit along the lines of Matthews' Southern Comfort (lo and behold, another Fairport connection!). If you're reading this wondering who or what "Fairport" is, I'd advise just googling "Fotheringport Confusion" and call me in the morning, you'll be fine.
The absolute diamond of the 11 tracks here is the stunning reading of the traditional Celtic tune "Wild Mountain Thyme," which countless artists have played and recorded, from Van Morrison to Sandy's friend Richard Thompson and beyond. Apparently there only existed a master of Sandy singing the song alone whilst accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, which Jerry Donahue (one of the world's master producers as well as one of the world's master guitar players) took into the studio and built a whole edifice around, using fragments of tapes from back then (1970) and with the help of the surviving rhythm section of Fotheringay: Gerry Conway and Pat Donaldson.
This is one of the world's most elegant & evocatively sentimental songs, carrying with it an ancient and timeless tone of reminiscence and celebration, if you will, of celebrations and loves past. I think this is what I found most fitting about its relationship to the rest of this lovingly constructed (and tremendously successful, IMO) re-approximation of what this band's 2nd record might have been like, and how I feel it finds its rightful place as a celebration of Fotheringay, and of Sandy and her unforgettable music in general. When it came on the first time, I was so moved by it I literally broke down and wept because I felt so privileged to have gotten to be alive at the same time as people like Sandy & Trevor, who are long gone physically but whose esteem will only grow and whose Art will live on forever thanks to reissue projects such as this one.
The first Fotheringay album is probably my all-time favorite British folk-rock record, and after merely 48 hours with the long-awaited (I'm about to be 42 so 38 years is a long time to me) follow-up I'm feeling like the new one is its equal... what more can be said?
If that doesn't convince you to get them both immediately, I'm not sure what will.
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