Self-Titled Summer | Fotheringay (1970, UK)
Our next Self-Titled Summer spotlight is on number 280 on The List, submitted by baz. Here’s a quick rundown:
- Point of origin(s): Fotheringay was a British folk rock quintet formed by Sandy Denny after she left Fairport Convention (following the release of their 1969 Liege & Leaf, which we looked at nearly a year ago in a SpaceAce Sunday), named after Denny’s song of the same name from the Fairport Convention album What We Did on Our Holidays. The other members were Denny’s partner and Australian guitarist Trevor Lucas plus drummer Gerry Conway (both formerly of folk psych prog rock band Eclection), and American guitarist Jerry Donahue and Scottish bassist Pat Donaldson (both formerly of prog psych group Poet and The One Man Band). This was their debut album.
- Tasting notes: Folk rock with some jazzy bits, Sandy Denny’s remarkable voice, wistful longing
- Standout track: Their cover of Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Way I Feel” – I want that song to last forever. The opener “Nothing More”, the first piano track Denny would write, is also fantastic (as it is on their live album, Essen 1970, released in 2011).
- Where are they now?/RIP: This is the only album released while the original lineup was together. They disbanded in January 1971 during recording sessions for a second album. While some of this material would later be released in 2008 under the title 2, some was used for Denny’s debut solo album (the 1971 The North Star Grassman and the Ravens) and on a Fairport Convention album (the 1972 Rosie), as Conway, Donahue, and Lucas had all joined that band after Fotheringay broke up (Donahue and Lucas from 1972-5, Conway just briefly at the time as a session musician, but then again later from 1998-2022). Denny would go on to have a successful but short solo career (with her former bandmates appearing on some of her albums), and would also briefly rejoin Fairport Convention in 1974-5. She tragically died in 1978 at the age of 31. Lucas then returned to Australia and mainly worked as a producer and film score composer until his death in 1989. In addition to his long stint in Fairport Convention, Conway was also in Pentangle from 1987 until his death just last year (he was married to Pentangle’s singer, Jacqui McShee). Donahue has a rather lengthy CV, working as both a musician (including guitar trio The Hellecasters plus being in The Yardbirds around 2004-5) and producer, at least up until a stroke in 2016 that affected his ability to play guitar. Donaldson was also in a few other bands and worked as a session musician (including for John Cale and Stevie Nicks)[1] at least into the 2010s. Quite a group, this one.
- Websites: Wikipedia
Happy listening!
- Though a non-Fotheringay/Fairport Convention-related tidbit, a fun find for me in writing this up is Donaldson’s work on Mae McKenna’s Everything That Touches Me (1976). I know this album as McKenna is the mother of Jamie Woon, whose debut LP we’ll see in a future spotlight because I had added it to The List. ↩︎
#1970s #BritishFolk #FairportConvention #folkRock #Fotheringay #GerryConway #JerryDonahue #music #musicDiscovery #PatDonaldson #SandyDenny #selftitled #TrevorLucas
