No More Sad Refrains: The Life and Times of Sandy Denny [Paperback]

Clinton Heylin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

With Fairport Convention and solo, Sandy Denny displayed one of contemporary music’s finest voices; she also composed her own material, including "Who Knows Where The Time Goes"—a huge U.S. hit for Judy Collins—and sang on Led Zeppelin IV. However, Sandy tragically got caught in a spiral of drink and drugs and died at age 31 in 1978. Best-selling Dylan biographer Heylin draws on hours of new interviews to tell Sandy’s story.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Helter Skelter Publishing (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1900924358
• ISBN-13: 978-1900924351
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,805,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars impressive biography, March 13, 2003

By 

P. J. Walstra "pwalstra" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: No More Sad Refrains: The Life and Times of Sandy Denny (Paperback)

I hadn't heard any of Sandy Denny's music until 1992, when a friend of mine gave me a cassette with a couple of her tracks on it. I listened to it on a long car journey, when it was the only tape I had with me, so I heard it several times then. I was totally fascinated by her music and voice and started collecting her music. Of course you then also want to find out something about the singer and initially all the info I had was from album liner notes. I soon learnt that she'd died at an early age but the circumstances leading up to that tragic event were never satisfactoraly explained. Later I bought a book on Fairport Convention (Meet On The Ledge) and even though that did provide a chronology of her career with FC, it didn't really shed more light on Sandy as a person.
No More Sad Refrains does. It is clear that the author is a big fan of her music, but he manages to keep the distance required to paint an objective picture of someone who was very talented, but certainly no saint as some of the album liner notes would have you believe. The book also manages to put a lot of her lyrics in perspective with things going on in her life, and has through that enriched my listening to her music.
Although of course the excesses of rock and roll and life on the road are described here, it is always done in a very objective way and never with the sensationalism that you find in many other rock biographies. An excellent and impressive biography.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars in full agreement with above review, September 9, 2007

By 

K. Hottentot (Netherlands) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: No More Sad Refrains: The Life and Times of Sandy Denny (Paperback)

I fully agree with the review above. Heylin's disdain in this book for Trevor Lucas is rather sickening and uncalled for. So he was no saint, and neither was she; who is? But to put Trevor Lucas down as a talentless bum, a leech who went along for the ride, in what ought to have been Sandy Denny's definite biography is respectless and smells like typical British gutter journalism. Now I don't know his other work but judging from this book, Clinton Heylin would be nice for The Sun or The News Of The World. I never met Trevor Lucas but as far as I know he is held in quite high regard among his peers. As a musician/frontman: check out the album Fotheringay which is as much Sandy's as Trevor's album. A classic, which is interesting given that Lucas is "talentless". Then Fairport's phoenixlike rise from the ashes in 1972 in which Lucas was a main catalyst; he's all over the Nine album which ranks among the best Fairport albums. Talentless my arse. Stick to the facts, Heylin, and keep your completely subjective thoughts to your diary.
Me, I much prefer the alternative biography, the unpublished one which this one replaced. Boo to Helter Skelter.

11 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horrid, and poorly written., October 27, 2003

By 

Jonathan Landry (Fairfax, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: No More Sad Refrains: The Life and Times of Sandy Denny (Paperback)

I was fortunate to get a copy of this nasty little book at the library, I'm glad I didn't spend money on this book.

The writing is horrid, with never ending sentences. One several occasions, one sentence went on for three or four lines, and contained easily a dozen commas. It's as if the author went out of his way to write in the most convoluted, confusing way humanly possible.

There really isn't anyone in the whole biography who the author seems to like, including and especially Sandy. The amount of hate and venom that the author spews towards Sandy's husband, Trevor Lucas, so awe inspiring that one would think that Trevor killed the author's cat. The author repeats a number of times how he is a talentless hack who only married Sandy because she was famous, not because he loved her. Granted, I don't think anyone would mistake Trevor for Richard Thompson, or even Simon Nicols (who I think is mentioned all of three times in the entire book); but I don't think he was the utterly talentless bozo the author makes him out to be. From what I've heard of him, he isn't that bad of a guitarist.

More seems to be written on how much Sandy drank, with whom she slept, how erratic and moody she was, etc., than anything else. It makes you wonder why the author choose to write a book on a person he doesn't seem to like one iota. Unfortunately, it's the only book out there on Sandy Denny. Which is the book's only remotely redeeming quality.