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Sandy Denny Named One of NPR's 50 Great Voices

June 14 2010, Tom Cole, NPR.org

Sandy Denny: Mercurial Queen Of British Folk Rock

There are a lot of reasons Sandy Denny was great — and worthy of being one of NPR's 50 Great Voices. There are also a lot of reasons she was confounding.

Robert Plant called Sandy Denny his "favorite singer out of all the British girls that ever were." Denny became the queen of British folk rock when she joined the band Fairport Convention in 1968. Nina Simone was also a fan. Both Simone and Judy Collins— among many others — recorded Denny's song Who Knows Where the Time Goes.

Yet today, many people have no idea who Sandy Denny was.

So here's a primer. For starters, she could play piano and guitar — well — learning the former from her father's Jelly Roll Morton records, and the latter from the likes of John Renbourn and Jackson Frank.

She could also write songs: "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" was one of her first efforts — written when she was around 19. And boy — could she sing.

"Her voice would go from a whisper to full throttle in the space of a line or two. That was a great gift that she had," says Richard Thompson, her collaborator in Fairport Convention and no slouch when it comes to songwriting and playing the guitar.

"Her style was original. Her phrasing was original. There's nothing quite like Sandy. She had a very powerful voice. She was fabulously in tune — like someone like Patsy Cline. No one ever heard Patsy Cline sing out of tune. No one ever heard Sandy sing out of tune in any situation. She was just absolutely on it all the time," Thompson says.

 Click HERE to read more about Sandy Denny and listen to an NPR segment on her career.