← Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
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To the behind the Song podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda.
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I'm Janda, and in this bonus episode of the behind the Song podcast, let's get into the incredible life and very tragic, very odd ending of Sandy Denny, the only guest vocalist to ever appear on a Led Zeppelin studio album. It's her voice you hear accompanying Robert Plant on the Battle of evermore from Led Zeppelin 4. This appearance cemented her place in rock and roll history, which is a testament to the respect she was given as a singer and musician. But let's trace back her career up to that point. Born In Wimbledon in 1947, he she picked up guitar and piano at an early age. She was studying to be a nurse at college when she started playing in the folk clubs around London, playing songs by artists emerging in the landscape at that time, like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. But she was also starting to write her own songs too. She left college to pursue a career in music, and within a couple of years she was signed to a deal with Saga Records. She joined the band the Straubs and recorded one of her earliest songs with them, a song called who Knows where the Time Goes. During this time, the American singer Judy Collins, who is the subject of Crosby, Stills and Nash's Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, covered that song as the title track to her album, which went into the charts in 1968. The Judy Collins version of that song was released before Sandy Denny's version, either with the Straubs or with her next band, the Fairport Convention, the band she's most closely associated with, hugely influential in British folk rock music, due in part to Denny leading the way to include traditional folk songs combined with modern compositions in their repertoire. Here's Sandy Denny's version of who Knows where the Time Goes with the Fairport Convention who Knows where the Time Goes. Judy Collins wasn't the only person to cover this song, although she was the first. Nina Simone covered it in 1970 and later so did Sinead O', Connor, David Gray, Cat Power and many more. When Sandy Denny released the song herself, it failed to chart, which would be a problem then and in the future when it came to her work and how it was received commercially anyway. Denny left Fairport convention in late 1969 to form the band Fathering Gay with a desire to record more original songs, a difference in direction from her previous band. They recorded one self titled album which was released in 1970, but broke up while recording the second after mismanagement. Meanwhile, Led Zeppelin were working on their fourth album, the monolithic Led Zeppelin 4, or ZOSO. According to Robert Plant, he said it didn't sound right to him to be singing both parts of the song the Battle of Evermore. So he and Jimmy Page reached out to Denny, who, who they greatly admired, to join them in the studio. What resulted was the haunting question and answer vocal between Denny and Plant. A song that sounds as it was intended to sound, like a spirit that rose up out of the fog in an English meadow one moonlit night. Totally timeless. This was the only time anyone ever sang with Led Zeppelin on a recording. And to thank her for her work, Zeppelin gave Sandy Denny her own symbol on the Led Zeppelin 4 artwork. Complementing each of the four members of the band's own chosen symbols, Denny's is three downward pointing triangles connecting in the middle forming an asterisk, and it was placed on the inner sleeve of Zoso. The asterisk was chosen to mark her contribution as a guest vocalist.
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By the way, Led Zeppelin only performed the Battle of Evermore live during their North American tour years later. In the late 70s, John Paul Jones sang Denny's parts. 1971 was a big year for Sandy Denny with the release of her debut solo album the North Star, Grassman and the Ravens in September of 1971. Two months later, Led Zeppelin 4 hit stores with her contribution to the Battle of Evermore. She was twice voted in as best British Female Singer in melody maker in 1970 and in 1971. During this time, the press paid her a lot of attention, of course, and some of it wasn't kind about her appearance. She was called plump by some journalists, which no doubt hurt her self esteem. And even though Sandy Denny was riding high with the accolades about her talent and the guest appearance on Led Zeppelin's album, her own solo work wouldn't prove to be commercially successful. She was by all accounts as talented as anyone else on the landscape and she could write really emotional, vulnerable songs and play multiple instruments beautifully. Although she was always a little tentative about her own skill on the guitar, she could, in other words, do what the boys could do on the stage and off. But unlike her male counterparts, Keith Moon and John Bonham, who she was said to have been able to keep up with when it came to drinking, no small feat, she wasn't celebrated for her erratic behavior and it didn't help with the sales of her albums. She got married in 1973 to producer Trevor Lucas, released her third solo album, briefly rejoined Fairport Convention, and then released her final solo album in 1977, which didn't sell all that well. Danny's relationship with her husband was tumultuous and her increasing abuse of alcohol and drugs was problematic, even more so after discovering that she was pregnant. Their daughter Georgia was born prematurely in July of 1977, and her friends recalled erratic behavior from Denny after that. Times when she would crash the car while drunk, or times when she would leave the baby at the pub. Denny's issues with alcohol are well noted. In fact, she had a kind of party trick that she was known to do on purpose. After drinking, she would throw herself down a flight of stairs in a really dramatic way, kind of like an old slapstick physical comedy trick. It was concerning to friends and one time this party trick would prove to be fatal. In one of the most odd stories in all of rock and roll history, Sandy Denny took a bad fall while on vacation at her parents house in 1978. She cut her head but didn't see a doctor and began to have excruciating headaches afterward. She was prescribed a painkiller for those headaches, which if mixed with alcohol, could be fatal. But Danny didn't stop drinking. She fell again about a month later at home and that fall scared her husband and fearing for the safety of their child, he took the baby and returned to his native Australia, leaving Danny alone. Danny went to a friend's house to stay, fell asleep and went into a coma from which she never awoke. She passed away on April 21, 1978, at just 31 years old. The death was ruled the result of a brain hemorrhage and blunt force trauma to the head. One fall too many. Sandy Denny's story is so tragic because despite her immense talent, her insecurities were an inescapable part of her desire to get out of her head. Using alcohol and drugs to cope. She died early, like so many other musicians that she was contemporaries with as a result. But the way she passed is really heartbreaking and the result of doing something dangerous for attention again and again and again. Hers is one of the strangest and oddest fates in rock history. A cautionary tale indeed. These days, Sandy Denny would probably have undergone an intervention for her addictions. But back in the 60s and 70s, those kinds of things sadly didn't really happen. Her musical legacy continues to grow, though. In 2023, Rolling Stone magazine ranked her at number 164 on their list of the 200 greatest singers of all time. And she's held up to be One of the UK's finest singer songwriters ever. One wonders what kind of music she would have continued to make had she taken a different track. Something to think about and a good reason to go back and listen to the music that Sandy Denny left behind. Until next time, I'm Janda and this has been behind the song. If you liked this episode, give it a like and hit. Subscribe on the way. Much more classic rock and roll.
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