Seldom before, or after, has a band that was so shortlived – Fotheringay performed for less than a year only – had such an influence on the development of a music style, in this case Folk Rock. The reason for this is that Fotheringay managed to find a synthesis between the two main branches of Folk Rock as so far had been staged, and which both in their own respect had some uncomfortable peculiarities. On the one hand there were Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span who simply put together undiluted Folk and undiluted Rock, which resulted in something new, that was in one way sensational for the time, but in another somewhat unbalanced. On the other side of the spectrum there was Pentangle that started out with the original folk layer and coated it with layers of Rock and Jazz influences, more balanced, but also more inaccessible to the larger public. Fotheringay solved both problems by largely depending on own compositions and not so much arrangements of traditional song, which gave them more freedom to adjust both the Rock and Folk elements in a way that they blended together better.

From the outset Fotheringay was very much the undertaking of Sandy Denny, which would both be a great asset for the band as well as the nucleus of it’s very early undoing. Denny set out to form the group after her (first) departure from The Fairport Convention. The other band members were however also by no means rookies in the Folk Rock scene, Trevor Lucas, (Denny’s future husband), and Gerry Conway having performed, with reasonable success, in Eclection and Jerry Donahue and Pat Donaldson have performed previously with the lesser known outfits Poet and One Man Band Respectively.

The selftitled first album of the band was released in the latter half of 1970 and contained apart from several Sandy Denny compositions, such as “Nothing More” and “The Pond and the Stream”, some cover songs from Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot, which became very useful for the bands experiments with a more naturally blended form of Folk Rock. In fact the album was well received, as well by the critics as by the public, entering the the British LP charts top twenty with ease. But the band, considering themselves somewhat of a Supergroup of the time, had counted on much more. And this “lack of success” formed a first reason behind the group’s disbanding half a year later. More important however was the Sandy Denny, by now officially chosen as Britain’s best vocalist, not only felt the pressure but also the eager to embark on a solo carreer.

When by the end of January 1971 the band called it quitters, recordings for a second full length release had in fact been almost completed. But given the disintegration of Fotheringay the album was not released (for the time of being……..). Some of the songs that had been intended for this album soon resurfaced on Denny’s solo-recordings as well as on those of Fairport Convention, which in the meanwhile had been joined by three of the former Fotheringay members, Lucas, Conway and Donahue. As Denny died most untimely in 1978 from the complications of a domestic accident and Lucas, having returned to his native Australia after his wife’s passing away, also suffered an early death, no reunion, so common for the Folk Rock legends of that age, of Fotheringay ever took place.

Former member Jerry Donahue however kept kindling the flame of hope of one day releasing the unfinished 1971 album. Attempts to this end were originally frustrated by the fact that by the time he tried so, the rights of many of the songs were in the hands of either the Fairport Convention or the heirs of Sandy Denny. However, by digging deep in originally rejected takes, by 2007 he was finally able to gain permission for the release. And, although it was for sure not the listing of songs that were intended to be on the album back in 1971, it could happen in that way that, after a 37 year (!) hiatus, the second full length release of the band came on the market, (To keep things in style it was only released on vinyl). This long-delayed release, simple called “2”, will certainly help to carry the fame of Fotheringay into the generations of Folk Rock lovers to come!

Gletscherwolf, November 2010


Source : Gletscherwolf