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Fotheringay - Fotheringay CD (album) cover

FOTHERINGAY

Fotheringay

 

Prog Related

3.56 | 43 ratings

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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk
3 stars First album of a hastily assembled group (partly by American folk producer legend Joe Boyd) that was the alternative to Sandy Denny going solo. Actually she fell in love with Trevor Lucas of the very weird pure folk group Eclection (out of which came out also the drummer Gerry Conway) and this band quickly came to be her working tool, but not just her accompanying band. Graced with a drawn group portrait and the fake arms on its back cover, the debut album is a very competent folk rock album, but would've been much more convincing if it had not a bunch of country rock tracks (courtesy of Trevor Lucas and his Aussie heritage), so don't be surprised if you like better Denny's compositions, it's not an accident, but simple folk vs country thing.

Soooo aside the obligatory Dylan cover Too Much Of Nothing (and more surprisingly a Gordon Lightfoot cover), the album does have the semi-stinking country rockers like Neal Kelly, but there is plenty of excellent tracks as well. This includes the enchanting album-opening Nothing More, one of these tracks that showed why she left Fairport. The Lightfoot track The Way I feel is probably the best I heard cover of one of his song, it holds some powerful drumming from Conway, some dramatic vocals and great dual guitars and even a solid tempo change to allow some final wailing. The Sea is another pure beauty in the folk realm adding much charm to the album, while Peace In The End is one of those song that have a slight country tinge, but it's nothing over-dramatic >> there are more coming up and not quite as good.

The usual Cd reissue comes with three bonus tracks (sometimes more), most of them likely from their second unreleased album, my version having Gypsy Davey and Two Weeks Last Summer from that session, recently available through the reworked tapes of the second album. Another bonus track, and much worthier is the lengthy Banks Of The Nile, where the band really lets go of itself. A really awesome track that pushes Fotheringay in the prog folk realm

Sean Trane | 3/5 |

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