Just before you ask: there’s no review of “Fotheringay 2” on this site. For one simple reason – after all the promotion on these pages, via newsletter and e-mail answering, nobody cared to supply DME with the review copy. Having to feed the family, I don’t place the album at the top of my shopping list, but even if I did, I rarely review what I pay for.
Known by a few for some months, now it’s official. Jerry Donahue, of FOTHERINGAY, FAIRPORTS and HELLECASTERS fame, informed DME that he’s “been given the go ahead to finish the “Fotheringay 2″ album and got access to all those wonderful recordings”. The work’s afoot already and, if things go according to plan, it will come out on Fledgling Records on October 13th, 2008. This is good news for all those who were fans of this band and their short career. It’s safe to say that these newly released tracks will be eagerly anticipated by those who loved their previous work.
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Among the tracks now made ready, are alternate takes – superior versions of those FOTHERINGAY songs that had been “redirected” for use on Sandy Denny solo albums and compilations, upon the breakup of the band. Half of the album had not yet advanced to an acceptable level of completeness and therefore will not have been heard at all, prior to this coming autumn. Fortunately, the great band’s heritage is in the caring hands now and the previously unfinished masterpiece will eventually see the light of day.
September 3, 2008
The day has almost come! On September 29th the eagerly-awaited “Fotheringay 2” album is out. This is how it looks like:
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1. John The Gun 2. Eppie Moray 3. Wild Mountain Thyme 4. Knights Of The Road 5. Late November 6. Restless 7. Gypsy Davey 8. I Don’t Believe You 9. Silver Threads And Golden Needles 10. Bold Jack Donahue 11. Two Weeks Last Summer |
And here’s Jerry’s diary.
May 21, 2008
There’s a few changes to the “Fotheringay 2” project, which is still targeted for release in October.
We won’t be including “Lowlands Of Holland” or the instrumental on this as so much more work is needed – also requiring Pat, Gerry and me all getting together again – and we just won’t have the time or opportunity without a substantial further postponement. We can look at a potential release of these sometime in the future.
However, other long lost tracks recorded by FOTHERINGAY have finally resurfaced after all these years, and we’re all very excited about it! The list below is comprised of all original FOTHERINGAY versions of the songs – all previously released cuts of these, borrowed for inclusion on other artists’ albums, or that have been selected as bonus tracks or on compilation albums and CDs, are different performances from these:
- Eppie Moray
- Gypsy Davey
- John The Gun
- Knights Of The Road
- Two Weeks Last Summer
- I Don’t Believe You
- Late November
- Restless
- Silver Threads And Golden Needles
- Bold Jack Donahue
- Wild Mountain Thyme
July 24, 2007
Things are going great (in fact, even better than I’d hoped as I uncover more treasures within the many versions of those songs). The only down side is that since it took Universal till May to get me the complete works (they had approved my involvement in February!) and I have had so many other commitments from the end of June that will keep me busy till the end of the year, I have had to ask for more time and David Suff of the Fledg’ling Records has agreed that we should not do a rush job and so we are talking about an October 2008 release.
I had hoped that I could have the stuff made available to me soon after the February approval date when I had so much time on my hands but it was not to be for whatever reason. As the two lead singers, Sandy Denny and Trevor Lucas, are no longer with us and so this is a one-time project only, it has to be first rate or I would not be doing justice to all those who participated in this fine music nor the fans either at the end of the day!
The good news is that we have found more songs that were Trevor’s contributions that were missing before. I’d forgotten about them till they were uncovered recently, but had been concerned that the album was Trevor light to such an extent. Up till then Trevor had only one full song and the first 3/4 of one other, the last verse of which Sandy sings. Now it’s 4 3/4 to Trev, 7 1/4 to Sandy and the one instrumental!
The rest of this year is taken up with the LEGENDS OF FOLK ROCK band project and workshops for Peavey who have supported me with the new signature guitar the Omniac JD.
I am in the States at present but will fly to the UK with my daughter, July 31st, to do a few dates over there as well as work on a new CD for the UK tour that begins October 31st and ends December 9th. The US agent for FAIRPORT also wants to represent us over here next year – it’s all very exciting!
February 8, 2007
I have been having a blast working on “Fotheringay 2”! T The tracks to be included are “Eppie Moray”, “Gypsy Davey”, “Late November”, “Lowlands Of Holland”, “John the Gun”, “Wild Mountain Thyme”, “Knights Of The Road”, “Silver Threads And Golden Needles”, “Two Weeks Last Summer”, “Bold Jack Donahue” and as yet unnamed instrumental written by Trevor Lucas and Jerry Donahue. The pictures were taken at a Studio in Montecito, California near Santa Barbara. The young chap with me is [Justin Fox] the owner/wiz engineer. He is also the lead singer and songwriter for a band named TRIPDAVON.
At that studio we installed the wave files that Universal Records’ tape library had converted from the original 8-track masters. The two songs that we worked on were “Late November” and “Gypsy Davey”. The first was written by Sandy Denny and the latter is FOTHERINGAY’s arrangement of an old traditional piece.
I’m now at Pete Barton’s studio in Lancashire, England. I’ll be here through till the end of the month. I’m still waiting on the rest of the songs to be transferred and sent to me, so I am continuing work on the two I mentioned and also some other stuff I’ve had from other sources. One of note is that I am working on my daughter’s debut album, too, while I am here. Her named is Kristina. Four songs that are up on her site are just rough versions among those I will be mixing here. I am playing guitar on “Match In Mississippi”. She guest sang with FAIRPORT at Cropredy in 1999 and then again (dueting also with Ian Matthews on three tunes he had originally performed with Sandy, of course) in 2000.
