Fledg'Ling Rec. 
Fotheringay : 2 (SP,1970,re.2008)***°
The only officially released Fotheringay LP remains one of my favourite folk-rock albums from the UK. It was also the most interesting material which Sandy Denny in any band (like with Fairport Convention and the Strawbs) had released. I knew already that they had started a second recording, but because the band split more quickly than expected this recording never saw the light of day, until now, as a restored version because most tracks were in fact never finished at the time.
Around the time Sandy Denny met Trevor Lucas (from Eclection) she left Fairport Convention and formed a new band with a few more band mates. Fotheringay’s first record was also produced by Joe Boyd. While working on the second album, misunderstandings and confusions arose together with Denny's well documented insicurities about going solo (which is what Joe Boyd wanted). With difficulties in the recording studio Joe Boyd became impatient with progressing and went back to America, finishing the album was no longer an option. Some of Sandy Denny’s songs were however taken over to her solo albums (on ‘The Northstar Grassman And The Ravens’, 1971 and ‘Like an Old Fashioned Waltz’, 1973).
Over forty years (!!!) later, Sandy Denny and Trevor Lucas have already passed away, but guitarist Donahue took the chance to work with two of the remaining members Donaldson and Conway to restore and produce the original intentions of the album by using the remaining master tapes. Some of these sessions had live vocals to the rhythm section to be replaced later with overdubs, but still seemed to be useful. The result is convincing as a finished production as a basic idea for what the band had in mind, even when some tracks give a somewhat more live impression in the way some tracks are arranged, rather than being stuffed with studio reconsiderations and arrangements, many songs are well penned and worth discovering. Of course, the Sandy Denny tracks are marvellous as ever, and there’s a surprisingly great David Cousins song as well, called “two weeks last summer”. “Eppie Moray” is a nice folk-rock track, but folk is not always the core. The band accompaniment sometimes is a bit more like a mainstream rock live band (with my least favourite : Bob Dylan’s “I don’t believe you”)*(-better check Al Stewart's version on 'Orange'...), and it is also even more clear how Trevor Lucas’s approach is actually very different from Sandy Denny’s even more subtle, deeperreaching approach. Never the less and despite this, the band keeps these contrasts consistently well together, which makes this release really enjoyable and very welcome for any Sandy Denny (and of course Lucas/Cousins) fan.
(Only sad they made such an unattractive cover. The only thing I can say about it is that it clearly shows it is made for “the second album”).
PS. I also noticed that there exists at least two more Fotheringay bootlegs (?). The first is based upon the three BBC sessions from between 4-11 november 1970, called “Wild Mountain” Thyme, and the other one has more live tracks and is called “poems from Alexandra”. I wonder how some of these songs took shape on these sessions.
