Christine's Vocal vs. Sandy Denny

michelej1 · #1 07-09-2013, 02:15 PM

[Excerpt from a Herald Scotland article about Sandy Denny]

http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts-e...nny.2013075255

Denny wrote and recorded Who Knows Where the Time Goes when she was 20 years old. Let me say that again. She was 20 years old. Maybe you'd have to be that young to write a line like “I have no thought of time”. And yet, it's a song that, as the title implies, knows all too well how quickly it passes. In short, it's a sad, gorgeous meditation on time and other thieves (as Joni Mitchell once said), sung in a voice pure and true.

Why do I like it so much? That voice perhaps. One of my problems with Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie was always that her vocals seemed too clean for me. Denny's isn’t that different but maybe where McVie's singing has a cool, detached sheen, Denny's, whilst clear, is also rich in feeling. "This voice is bell-like, only bearing the faintest patina of an oor-aargh yodel, the voice of Tradition un-clotted by Style: unmistakeably, the voice of a human being, not a chunky jumper," Nick Coleman wrote in the NME IN 1986.

SteveMacD · #2 07-09-2013, 04:27 PM

Interesting find!

Their voices do sound remarkably alike on some level. I could easily imagine Christine singing "Come All Ye" or "Matty Groves".

I think the comments may be a little unfair to Christine. Christine wanted to play piano in a blues band and had to become a singer-songwriter as her career progressed. She doesn't write much unless there's a pending project. Sandy Denny wanted to be a singer-songwriter from the start and worked to develop those talents.

becca · #3 07-10-2013, 01:51 PM

Wow, what a dopey article. I really doubt it would grab anyone's interest in hearing Sandy's recordings. Comparing Christine with Sandy is pretty pointless as they are quite different other than their gender and playing piano unaccompanied at times. Plus I'm kind of tired of female artists being contrasted against each other generally because it's lazy. Christine is not a failed Sandy or vice-versa. To understand why maybe you'd need to know about folk and blues people from before Fleetwood Mac existed, people like Davy Graham, Jackson Frank and Anne Briggs. Christine was in the commercial blues-rock scene. You'd have to go back even further to find where the two intersect.

I think early Barbara Dickson would be more in line with appreciating Sandy Denny vocals. Christine's music just has different aims and roots. In fact Stevie Nicks has much more songwriting-wise in common with the couching of real life things into Dylan style metaphor. I've imagined for years that Stevie fans might really dig Sandy but never really thought Christine fans would be especially sympathetic.

chiliD · #4 07-10-2013, 03:47 PM

More people have heard Sandy Denny's voice than they even realize.

All ya gotta do is mention Led Zeppelin's "Battle Of Evermore". That's Sandy. How she could be so prominent on a Led Zeppelin song and not have all those stoned out Led Zeppelin freaks clamoring for her albums, making her widely popular in the process, is beyond me.

(speaking from first hand experience, I am. I WAS one of those "stoned out Led Zeppelin freaks" who clamored for her albums back in the early '70s when I was living the real life version of Jack Black in High Fidelity )

This was always one of my favorite albums of hers. Need to check out the recent Deluxe Version to update my collection.

aleuzzi · #5 07-12-2013, 08:39 PM

The writer says Christine's voice always seemed too clean to him/her. Odd. I've often felt the complete opposite about the singers. Whereas Sandy Denny's voice is like pure morning sunshine, Christine's voice is a darker, dusky wine, with all kinds of flavors of sex and haunted longing. As one review of the 75 album said of her, her voice is very effective and "not too pretty." Songs like Over My Head and Say You Love Me work so well because her voice has all kinds of intriguing imperfections.

applebucked · #6 08-30-2013, 12:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aleuzzi

The writer says Christine's voice always seemed too clean to him/her. Odd. I've often felt the complete opposite about the singers. Whereas Sandy Denny's voice is like pure morning sunshine, Christine's voice is a darker, dusky wine, with all kinds of flavors of sex and haunted longing. As one review of the 75 album said of her, her voice is very effective and "not too pretty." Songs like Over My Head and Say You Love Me work so well because her voice has all kinds of intriguing imperfections.

I've listened to a few Sandy Denny songs and I get the same impression. There are a few similarities with their phrasing of lyrics, but Sandy's voice is bright and clear, while Christine's is, as you said, dark and dusky (especially in the later years. Calumny is the best showcase for this one).