Sandy Denny
Album: The Notes And The Words: A Collection Of Demos And Rarities
Label: Island/Universal
Tracks: 75
Website: http://www.sandydennyofficial.com

Almost exactly two years ago, in November 2010, Universal brought out what might be regarded as the ultimate in box-sets: a massive, and glorious, 19-disc retrospective celebrating the music of Sandy Denny, which contained, in addition to all her studio recordings, an exhaustive collection of live tracks and radio sessions, rarities and demos and - most crucially, a host of previously unreleased material from within those categories, much of it well remastered. The exceedingly lavish presentation involved the provision within the large box itself of a number of items of memorabilia in addition to (most significantly) a really handsome LP-size booklet, and the whole artefact, being a limited-edition item, quickly became a highly-prized collectible that is currently fetching obscene prices on the Internet.

However, many true Sandy Denny enthusiasts (quite legitimately) felt distinctly deprived, being genuinely unable to afford to fork out around £150 for the box in order to gain access to what amounted to probably eight or nine discs' worth of hitherto unavailable or ultra-rare material; and so this new limited-edition four-disc box should be at least partly the answer to their prayers, for it gathers together a major selection (in total a generous 75) of arguably the most significant of the demos, outtakes and rarities from the big box-set and, importantly, sequences them (more or less) chronologically. The discs are housed in a high-quality, sturdy near-DVD-sized case approximating previous similarly-scoped compilations, and within the enclosed 42-page booklet each disc sports (along with a good quotient of well-reproduced photos etc) a comprehensive sleeve-note that provides as much relevant detail as possible (not exactly track-by-track but the next best thing, and in several cases illuminating or elaborating on the comparable information provided with the original big-box, which was often either frustratingly imprecise or else difficult to extract from the main text), together with a decent appraisal of the necessary contextual perspective for the recordings on that disc, incidentally furnishing further fascinating nuggets of insight and back-story.

Thus, the first disc takes us through the early home demos, culminating in the very first (and revelatory), recording (dating from 1967) of Who Knows Where The Time Goes?, before presenting the acoustic demos Sandy recorded between Fairport albums What We Did On Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking. Disc 2 samples an obscure 1969 film soundtrack before straddling the Liege And Lief sessions, the years with Fotheringay and moving on into Sandy's first solo record (North Star Grassman), ending with the most-recently-discovered item from the box, her quite stunning a cappella take of the Lord Bateman ballad. Disc 3, which covers the years of Sandy's burgeoning songwriting and the solo albums from North Star Grassman through to Like An Old Fashioned Waltz, presents either solo acoustic demos or in the case of the latter album sessions) alternate takes without overdubs or in different arrangements. Pride of place on Disc 3 inevitably goes to the solo rendition of No End, where we gain considerable insight into Sandy's creative processes and can virtually hear the song evolving before our ears through this intense yet relaxed performance. Disc 4 gives us the non-album-track home demos recorded just as Sandy was rejoining Fairport in early 1974, followed by some Troubadour live cuts and Rising For The Moon alternate takes, then presents the Rendezvous-period acoustic takes and ends with Sandy's very last studio recording (Moments) and the 1977 home demo of her very last original composition, Makes Me Think Of You.

So, as I've already hinted, the release of this well-presented four-disc set provides, rather than a mere cynical "further repackaging exercise", a genuinely useful service for the serious Sandy Denny collector who for whatever reason was forced to miss out on the not inconsiderable number of treasures that were liberally (and not always entirely logically) scattered amongst the 19 discs of the 2010 big-box; while, although still somewhat of a "tip of the iceberg" in nature, it also constitutes a useful supplementary (and complementary) stand-alone set to be taken and shelved alongside, and within the context of, this year's "enhanced edition" reissues of the four Sandy Denny solo albums.

David Kidman