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Sandy Denny

Hokey Pokey #16, Autumn 1989

PAST: She learnt piano at school, then became one of those girls with a bias to Baez you see round the folk clubs. She sang with the Strawbs in their folkier days and made a never - released album. Then came Fairport and a song called A Sailor's Life launched a whole new wave of electric folk which is still surging ahead, but without her.

She formed her own band, the late and under-rated Fotheringay, which suddenly died on her and she struggled on for a while with a backing group of incredible musicians (e.g. Richard Thompson) before bowing to inevitable economics and going completely solo.

PRESENT: Her solo career has been more successful than either of her two bands, and she has just recorded an album on the West Coast which could establish her as a real household name.

FUTURE: Girl singers can't make it on their own, goes the legend, and Sandy has found it harder than most to reconcile the demands of personal life and career. There are lots of fans who will never be happy until they hear her singing “traditional” with Fairport once more. Stranger things have happened. She's turned up, unadvertised, on some of their gigs lately, and they've jammed.