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'One of the most moving and beautiful voices this country has ever produced': Bob Stanley's short biography of an unsung hero of British folk music

, widely regarded as the queen of British folk rock, died aged just 31 in 1978 but left behind more than a decade's worth of recordings that continue to inspire and inform the folk scene four decades on. Her rise to fame, though, wasn't exactly sure or steady. Sandy had initially trained to become a nurse before quitting to go to Kingston Art College in 1966 (where one of her classmates was folk guitarist John Renbourn). Her parents had talked her out of pursuing a career in music, so it was treated as more of a hobby.

Sandy's first ever recordings were at Cecil Sharp House - home of the English Folk Dance & Song Society (EPDSS) - for the 主播大秀 World Service show Folk Song Cellar: she sang a pair of traditional songs, Green Grow The Laurels (with the same melody as Once I Had a Sweetheart) and Fhir A Bhata, or The Boatman. This was on December 2nd 1966, when Tom Jones' Green Green Grass Of 主播大秀 was top of the hit parade.

Sandy's first professional recordings the following year were for the budget Saga label, based on Kensal Road in West London and run by the slippery William Barrington-Coupe (who had financed Joe Meek's Triumph label and would go on to play a central role in the Joyce Hatto scandal). They were scattered over a brace of albums, one called Sandy and Johnny (with 主播大秀 presenter Johnny Silvo) and the other Alex Campbell and his Friends. It seems bizarre that no one realised the talent they had recorded, but Sandy was self-effacing and playful; Saga didn't take her that seriously and let her get away.

While she was playing a show at the Troubadour in Knightsbridge in 1967, - or the Strawberry Hill Boys, to give them their full name - caught her act and invited her to join them on some shows in Denmark. They ended up playing the Tivoli Gardens and recording a dozen songs in a Copenhagen studio, all written by the Strawbs with the exception of Sandy's Who Knows Where The Time Goes. The recordings remained unreleased until another budget label, Pickwick, released them in 1973. Given that the one song of her own that she was allowed to sing outshone the rest of the Strawbs' work, Sandy unsurprisingly quit them and looked for a band where her writing would be taken more seriously.

Judy Collins, one of the biggest names in folk, somehow managed to hear a demo of Who Knows Where The Time Goes and was so taken with it, she made it the title track of her 1968 album. Meanwhile, another bunch of suburban boys, Fairport Convention, were looking for a new female singer after they had unceremoniously kicked out Judy Dyble, who had sung on their fine first album and went on to form Trader Horne with Jackie MacAuley, formerly of Them.

Sandy auditioned for Fairport in 1968; rhythm guitarist Simon Nicol remembers her standing out "like a clean glass in a sink full of dirty dishes". She joined, and the group cut three peerless albums (What We Did On Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, Liege And Lief) within a year before, once again, Sandy moved on as her songwriting wasn't getting enough room.

Nevertheless, her peripatetic recordings of the sixties had laid out a map for British folk rock, for the likes of Steeleye Span, Trees, and the Albion Band in the seventies; Sandy's biggest success would come with her guest appearance on Led Zeppelin's Battle Of Evermore, but her solo career never quite took flight. When The Times ran a list of the twenty greatest voices in pop a couple of years ago, Sandy Denny was second only to Elvis. Hands up, I compiled the list, but I don't think many would argue that Sandy Denny had one of the most moving and beautiful voices this country has ever produced.