Sandy Denny at Putney Vale Cemetery

London. Fascinating place but an absolute bastard when it comes to finding peace and quiet. Anything resembling real countryside is bloody miles away, the parks are filled with joggers, buggy-pushing parents, cyclists and kids; the streets are simply full. My recent lightbulb moment was the realisation that cemeteries are usually empty, save for dead people, and give some opportunity to walk quietly while smelling wet grass and trees rather than exhaust fumes and Lynx. The bonus in London is that some graveyards have famous residents… And so, by bus, train, then another bus to cover the six miles between here and there, I went to see Sandy Denny’s final resting place at Putney Vale Cemetery, between Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common.
It’s a simple grave: a horizontal rectangle of stone marking its limits, covered in green gravel, the headstone reading, line by line, The Lady // Alexandra Elene // MacLean Lucas // (Sandy Denny) // 6.1.47 – 21.4.78
Her birth name was Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny – MacLean from her Scottish granny while Lucas came from Trevor Lucas, the Australian musician she married in 1973. I didn’t know any of this until the last couple of days, searching it out on the web.
Her life certainly ended badly. The short bios you get in review articles and the information on Wikipedia suggests two phases. One started when she was still a teenager, a precocious singer on the London folk scene of the mid-1960s, invited to join Fairport Convention when still just 21 years old, contributing to three of their albums, writing the classic song Who Knows Where The Time Goes? among other accomplished tunes, launching her own band in the shape of Fotheringay, then switching to a solo career in 1971 with the release of The North Star Grassman And The Ravens LP. The same year she appeared on Led Zeppelin IV, providing vocals for The Battle Of Evermore alongside Robert Plant.
And then? Her life changed: marriage, a move to a village in Northamptonshire, three more solo albums which didn’t trouble the charts, an attempt to go more mainstream, a daughter, and being dropped by her record company. By the time her daughter came along in 1977, her friends were concerned about her drinking and drug intake. On a family holiday in Cornwall in March 1978, she fell down stairs and struck her head. Over the next three to four weeks, Trevor Lucas left her, taking their child with him, because of her erratic behaviour – the knock and medication for subsequent headaches exacerbating her existing problems. Very soon after, Denny went into a coma and died, officially of ‘traumatic mid-brain haemorrhage’. She was 31 years old.
The background information you find about her on the web says that despite her talent, she was always insecure on a professional and personal level. It’s easy now to look back over the years and think, ‘My god, she really had it, didn’t she? She had the fairy dust,’ but after a whirlwind three years, 1968-71, with Fairport Convention, Fotheringay and solo, her career showed diminishing returns, surely feeding her own lack of self-confidence. Decades later she may be lauded as a major artist and a leading light of the English folk rock scene, but as she headed towards her 30th birthday in early 1977, it seems she certainly didn’t feel like that. The women topping the charts back then were Julie Covington, Donna Summer, and those from Abba, Brotherhood of Man, and Manhattan Transfer. The hip ones were Debbie Harry, Tina Weymouth, and the Runaways. A voice of clarity and power, a proficiency with piano and guitar, plus elliptical songs mining English folk heritage were all a little passé. The year she died, disco and punk were the prominent genres.
Actually visiting the grave may seem a little macabre but it was a fine autumn day in southwest London, the sun was shining through the trees, there was a smell of damp ground, a chance to stretch legs, and a focus for an important and recent slice of English musical history.
As I walked towards the exit, thinking about iTunes and Sandy Denny music, I stopped to take some snapshots of the cemetery with my phone. The grave I stood next to at that moment drew my attention as it was polished and black rather than weathered and white. The name at the top was Howard Carter. Yes, it was that Howard Carter (1874-1939), the guy who discovered Tutankhamun. There was a quote at the bottom of the headstone reading, ‘May your spirit live, may you spend millions of years, you who love Thebes, sitting with your face to the north wind, your eyes beholding happiness.’ Other graves I missed included Alexander Kerensky, James Hunt and more actors and comedians than you would credit – from Arthur Askey and Sir Stanley Baker to Joan Sims.
The YouTube clip of Denny is Crazy Lady Blues from her first solo album, The North Star Grassman And The Ravens.

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