No More Sad Refrains : The Life and Times of Sandy Denny

Rating:
Summary: impressive biography
Review: I hadn't heard any of Sandy Denny's music until 1992, when a friend of mine gave me a cassette with a couple of her tracks on it. I listened to it on a long car journey, when it was the only tape I had with me, so I heard it several times then. I was totally fascinated by her music and voice and started collecting her music. Of course you then also want to find out something about the singer and initially all the info I had was from album liner notes. I soon learnt that she'd died at an early age but the circumstances leading up to that tragic event were never satisfactoraly explained. Later I bought a book on Fairport Convention (Meet On The Ledge) and even though that did provide a chronology of her career with FC, it didn't really shed more light on Sandy as a person.
No More Sad Refrains does. It is clear that the author is a big fan of her music, but he manages to keep the distance required to paint an objective picture of someone who was very talented, but certainly no saint as some of the album liner notes would have you believe. The book also manages to put a lot of her lyrics in perspective with things going on in her life, and has through that enriched my listening to her music.
Although of course the excesses of rock and roll and life on the road are described here, it is always done in a very objective way and never with the sensationalism that you find in many other rock biographies. An excellent and impressive biography.

Rating:
Summary: Horrid, and poorly written.
Review: I was fortunate to get a copy of this nasty little book at the library, I'm glad I didn't spend money on this book.

The writing is horrid, with never ending sentences. One several occasions, one sentence went on for three or four lines, and contained easily a dozen commas. It's as if the author went out of his way to write in the most convoluted, confusing way humanly possible.

There really isn't anyone in the whole biography who the author seems to like, including and especially Sandy. The amount of hate and venom that the author spews towards Sandy's husband, Trevor Lucas, so awe inspiring that one would think that Trevor killed the author's cat. The author repeats a number of times how he is a talentless hack who only married Sandy because she was famous, not because he loved her. Granted, I don't think anyone would mistake Trevor for Richard Thompson, or even Simon Nicols (who I think is mentioned all of three times in the entire book); but I don't think he was the utterly talentless bozo the author makes him out to be. From what I've heard of him, he isn't that bad of a guitarist.

More seems to be written on how much Sandy drank, with whom she slept, how erratic and moody she was, etc., than anything else. It makes you wonder why the author choose to write a book on a person he doesn't seem to like one iota. Unfortunately, it's the only book out there on Sandy Denny. Which is the book's only remotely redeeming quality.

Rating:
Summary: Horrid, and poorly written.
Review: I was fortunate to get a copy of this nasty little book at the library, I'm glad I didn't spend money on this book.

The writing is horrid, with never ending sentences. One several occasions, one sentence went on for three or four lines, and contained easily a dozen commas. It's as if the author went out of his way to write in the most convoluted, confusing way humanly possible.

There really isn't anyone in the whole biography who the author seems to like, including and especially Sandy. The amount of hate and venom that the author spews towards Sandy's husband, Trevor Lucas, so awe inspiring that one would think that Trevor killed the author's cat. The author repeats a number of times how he is a talentless hack who only married Sandy because she was famous, not because he loved her. Granted, I don't think anyone would mistake Trevor for Richard Thompson, or even Simon Nicols (who I think is mentioned all of three times in the entire book); but I don't think he was the utterly talentless bozo the author makes him out to be. From what I've heard of him, he isn't that bad of a guitarist.

More seems to be written on how much Sandy drank, with whom she slept, how erratic and moody she was, etc., than anything else. It makes you wonder why the author choose to write a book on a person he doesn't seem to like one iota. Unfortunately, it's the only book out there on Sandy Denny. Which is the book's only remotely redeeming quality.