I am actually sort of a dilettante when it comes to UK folkie stuff, although I appreciate it and there was a time when I really knew the 70's stuff. But, how can one not appreciate the voice of Sandy Denny? My friend Doug, who really does know this stuff inside out told me that this box is really beautifully done with tons of rare stuff that even he hadn't come across (and he's a big collector and has tons of CDs of rare/unreleaseds stuff). So, if it impressed him, it will impress you too!)
"Deluxe 5CD set packaged in a long form box. 4CDs trace Sandy's complete career, many rare and previously unreleased songs including 'Silver Threads and Golden Needles' -- previously unknown outtake from Fotheringay, 'Losing Game' -- previously unreleased duet with Jess Roden, 'She Moved Through The Fair' live in Los Angeles - duet with Dave Swarbrick - alternate takes and early demo versions. Fifth CD bonus disc with rare demos and live tracks, solo and with Fairport Convention (only included with the first pressing). 56 page full colour booklet containing a foreword by Richard Thompson, biographical essay by Jim Irvin (Mojo), coda by Dick Gaughan, many rare and previously unpublished photographs drawings and lyrics from Sandy's original notebooks full discographical track details." "We don't hear Sandy Denny on the radio these days. Her records, few that they are, don't fit the current formats, don't send the programmers into paroxysms, don't have listeners voting in. She couldn't be considered for sixties, seventies hit nostalgia; she never had hits. Rock album stations? Never sold enough albums. Even Nick Drake sneaks into the odd Easy Listening show, the music lulling and deceiving, with its attractive surfaces hiding the pain within, something romantic for a cult to cling to. But where is Sandy's cult? Where are the graveside vigilants a la Jim Morrison? The colour supplemental cultural dissections? The South Bank Show eulogies, the bad TV and film biopics telling us who should be important in our lives? Somewhere the taste gurus have failed the flock, have failed to tell us, after twenty years of hindsight opportunity, that Sandy Denny was the greatest British female artist of her generation." -- from Richard Thompson's foreword to Pamela Murray Winter's unpublished Sandy Denny biography.