Thea Gilmore - Sings Sandy Denny (& others)

TG Sings Sandy Denny (& others)

Various sources, mostly live

mostly audience recordings (sound quality range VG- to VG+; the vocals are clear but somewhat distant on the first 4 tracks)

TG sings SD in Liverpool May 2012. Photo by Mudkiss, via Flickr

Thea  Gilmore’s Don’t Stop Singing (2011) is an album of new tunes with words by Sandy Denny — lyrics that had never been set to music during Sandy’s lifetime. The first 10 tracks in this collection are live and alternate versions (plus one older Sandy song). The others are either Thea’s own compositions or covers. In a word, GREAT STUFF!

Repercussion: Peter Holsapple is a big fan of Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention, the best-known band with which Sandy sang. Peter and many of his fellow Continental Drifters were the house band for a multi-artist tribute to the music of Sandy Denny (organized by Peter) in 1998, and they recorded an entire album of Sandy Denny / Fairport Convention / Richard Thompson covers called Listen, Listen.

MANY THANKS to all who recorded & shared these tracks

Thanks to UncleBoko for these photos
from the London SD Tribute Show, May 2012

01 Glistening Bay (live)

02 London (live)

03 Long Time Gone (live)

04 Don't Stop Singing (live)

05 Pain In My Heart (live)

06 Like an Old Fashioned 
     Waltz (live)

07 Georgia (live)

08 Don't Stop Singing 
     (live, acoustic)

09 London (demo)

10 London (live)

11 Thea G interview 
      (re unreleased SD lyrics)

12 Contessa (live session)

13 Red, White and Black
     (live session)

14 To the Bone (acoustic)

15 Old Soul (live session)

16 My Friend, Goodbye (live)

17 I Want to Tell You
     (Beatles cover)

18 Girl from the North 
     Country (Dylan cover)

TT: 1:07:16

MP3@320

TRACK INFO:

1-3 = “The Lady” live tribute to Sandy Denny, The Barbican, London, UK 2012-05-23 (aud)

4 = “The Lady” live tribute to SD, The Anvil, Basingstoke, Hants, UK 2012-05-24 (aud)

5 = Jazz Café, London, UK 2013-03-12 (aud)

6-7 = Cecil Sharp House, London, UK 2012-02-04 (aud)

8 = Andrew Marr television programme, UK 2011-11-20 (TV audio)

9 = undated studio demo subtitled “Work In Progress 2” (sbd)

10 = Great British Folk Festival, 2012 (aud)

11 = BBC Breakfast television programme, 2012-04-21 (TV audio)

12–13 = BBC Radio 2 live session, 2006 (FM)

14 = acoustic version recorded at home by TG (sbd)

15 = from Public Television program “Sun Studios Sessions” 2009 (TV audio)

16 = Union Chapel, London, UK 2012 (aud)

17 = from Mojo magazine’s various-artist compilation Revolver Reloaded, given away with copies of Mojo

18 = BBC Radio 2 special “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” (various artists), May 2013 (spoken intro by BBC DJ Mark Radcliffe)

  Thea's recent album of songs set to Sandy's lyrics is impressive
(see this feature story about it in the UK's Telegraph)

 

Learn more about the music of Thea  Gilmore

at her web site and/or AllMusic

 

Peter & The Drifters - Sandy Denny Tribute 1998

Listen, Listen: The Music of Sandy Denny
Peter stages a tribute concert (with a little help from his friends)

St. Ann's Church, Brooklyn Heights, NY

November 21, 1998

recording & broadcast by WFUV-FM, NYC

Cover art for Set 1 (art for both sets included in download). Levent Varlik

web stream (quality Ex--; this recording has some of the usual anomalies of a web capture plus a very occasional computer-generated volume adjustment beep tone)

Highlights: Multiple, but I was especially knocked out by the contributions of Susan Cowsill, Susan McKeown, Marti Jones & Don Dixon.

BIG THANKS to the taper and ALL PRAISE to Levent Varlik of the Sandy Denny fan forum at Yahoo for the generous share (sent to me all the way from Turkey)!

CLICK highlighted names below for a link to learn more about the artist’s music.
 

SET 1

01  intro - Meg Griffin (WFUV announcer)

02  Come All Ye - Katell Keineg

03  Listen, Listen - Vicki Peterson
04  Next Time Around – Sloan Wainwright  
05  One Way Donkey Ride* - Deni Bonet 

06  Banks of the Nile  - Michael Steele   
07  Blackwaterside – Darius Rucker

08  Tam Lin - Susan McKeown

09  It Suits Me Well - Mike Mills

10  Autopsy - Dana (and Karen?) Kletter

11  Gold Dust - Don Dixon

12  At the End of the Day* - Susan Cowsill

13  outro

 
*Indicates tracks with very occasional beep tones from the computer’s volume adjustment control. Let this be a lesson to you young, budding tapers out there: mute that sucker before you try to record a webcast or web stream!

The Continental Drifters served as the house band for the show. 

(That’s Peter on the right, sittin’ and strummin’…)

SET 2 

01  intro

02  The Northstar Grassman and the Ravens - Michael Steele

03  John the Gun - John Crooke

04  A Sailor's Life - Amanda Thorpe

05  Take Me Away - Marti Jones

06  Stranger to Himself - Dana Kletter

07  Solo - Susan McKeown

08  I'm a Dreamer - Susan Cowsill

09  Matty Groves - Robyn Hitchcock

10  Who Knows Where the Time Goes? - Katell Keineg

11  Peace In the End* – Don Dixon & Marti Jones

12  Meet On the Ledge – Susan Cowsill & The Continental Drifters, et al

Other versions of this show list two additional tracks, absent here: an encore, “Farewell, Farewell” (sung by Amanda Thorpe), followed by the final outro.

MP3@320

Disc 1

Disc 2  

MF linx

Disc 1 

Disc 2

Musicians (in addition to the vocalists listed above, some of whom also played on some tracks):

Peter Holsapple (musical director for the show)

Russ Broussard

Robert Maché

Mark Walton

For a handful of years in the 1990s, Peter had the enviable job of organizing tributes to some of the great, lesser-known artists of popular music. This one (like the 1997 show at the same venue performed in honor/memory of Nick Drake's music) is a beauty. It was part of a short-lived, but extraordinary, program called Arts at St. Ann’s.

YOU CAN STILL BUY the most excellent album Listen Listen by The Continental Drifters directly from Blue Rose Records in Germany. It features the Drifters’ versions of several Sandy Denny classics as well as Richard Thompson compositions. (AllMusic gave it a 4-star review.) I’ve ordered from Blue Rose and can vouch for their great service — even for non-German speakers.
 

 

GO HERE for a video of John Crooke singing a good chunk of “John the Gun” from this show.   
GO HERE for a video of Darius Rocker singing “Blackwaterside” from this show (and see Peter play the squeezebox for a few exciting seconds).
  
THANKS to kinskilee for the uploads!