I've Always Kept a Unicorn: The Biography of Sandy Denny - Rilegato

Mick Houghton

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0571278906 ISBN 13: 9780571278909

Casa editrice: Faber and Faber, 2015

Riassunto

I've Always Kept a Unicorn tells the story of Sandy Denny, one of the greatest British singers of her time and the first female British singer-songwriter to produce a substantial and enduring body of original songs. Sandy emerged from the passionate, hard-drinking folk scene of the sixties - a world of larger-than-life characters such as Alex Campbell, Bert Jansch, Jackson C. Frank, Anne Briggs and her future husband, the Australian singer Trevor Lucas. She then laid down the marker for folk-rock when she joined Fairport Convention in 1968, recording three albums with them before her shock departure in November 1969 just ahead of the release of the last, the seminal Liege & Lief.

Sandy was driven by a restless search for the perfect framework for her songs during the seventies. She first formed Fotheringay with Trevor Lucas, but left the group controversially after their eponymous debut album. This was followed by a historic one-off recording with Led Zeppelin, 'The Battle of Evermore' - Sandy is the only guest vocalist ever to record with the group - and four mercurial solo albums, as well as a return to Fairport Convention, before her tragic and untimely death in 1978, aged thirty-one, in circumstances still shrouded in hearsay and speculation.

Sandy's often turbulent relationship with Trevor is at the core of her later life and work, as she tried to reconcile motherhood and marriage with the trappings of a rock 'n' roll lifestyle and a conflicted desire for the fame and success that others expected of her. Largely based on original and candid interviews with more than fifty of her friends, fellow musicians and contemporaries, and with access to previously unseen documents, photographs and Sandy's own notebooks, this is Sandy's story - that of a life never sung out of tune.

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Recensione:

I've Always Kept a Unicorn is rich in insight from those who loved and despaired of her. While never over-embroidering the story, Houghton builds it through the intelligent and sensitive recall of everyone from Thompson to the Guardian's Richard Williams. (The Guardian)

Mick Houghton's scrupulously researched biography draws a detailed picture both of Denny's increasingly complex mental state and of the London folk scene in the Sixties and Seventies. . . [An] authoritative and comprehensive biography. (Fiona Sturges Independent)

Houghton unpicks her story with sensitivity , but does not shy away from the more unpalatable details. . . [An] admirably level-headed account. (Graeme Thomson Mail on Sunday)

I've Always Kept A Unicorn lays legitimate claim to being the most comprehensive account yet of a career of often unrealised promise (Uncut 8/10)

A flaws-and-all celebration of one woman and her timeless music (Mojo 4****)

Expertly written, definitive biography (Shindig 5****)

Descrizione del libro:

The definitive biography of Sandy Denny, one of the most influential folk-rock artists of all time.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Faber and Faber
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0571278906
• ISBN 13: 9780571278909
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 528