I've Always Kept a Unicorn

The Biography of Sandy Denny

Mick Houghton

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Paperback

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English

Faber & Faber
27 April 2016

Music; Folk & traditional music; Individual composers & musicians, bands & groups; Biography: arts & entertainment

I've Always Kept a Unicorn tells the story of Sandy Denny, one of the greatest British singers of her time and the first female singer-songwriter to produce a substantial and enduring body of original songs. Sandy Denny laid down the marker for folk-rock when she joined Fairport Convention in 1968, but her music went far beyond this during the seventies. After leaving Fairport she formed Fotheringay, whose influential eponymous album was released in 1970, before collaborating on a historic one-off recording with Led Zeppelin - the only other vocalist to record with Zeppelin in their entire career - and releasing four solo albums across the course of the decade. Her tragic and untimely death came in 1978.

Sandy emerged from the folk scene of the sixties - a world of larger-than-life characters such as Alex Campbell, Jackson C. Frank, Anne Briggs and Australian singer Trevor Lucas, whom she married in 1973. Their story is at the core of Sandy's later life and work, and is told with the assistance of more than sixty of her friends, fellow musicians and contemporaries, one of whom, to paraphrase McCartney on Lennon, observed that she sang like an angel but was no angel.

By: Mick Houghton
Imprint: Faber & Faber
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Main
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 130mm, Spine: 32mm
Weight: 425g
ISBN: 9780571278916
ISBN 10: 0571278914
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 27 April 2016
Recommended Age: From 0 to 0 years
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Since the 1970s, Mick Houghton has written on music for various publications including Sounds, Time Out and, more recently, Mojo and Uncut. He worked as a PR at Warner Brothers, before setting up his own agency, Brassneck Publicity, where he's represented artists such as Echo & the Bunnymen, Julian Cope, Spiritualized, Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson, and the KLF. As one of the Grammy-nominated compilers of the box set Forever Changing: The Golden Age of Elektra Records, 1963-1973, he went on to write the critically acclaimed Becoming Elektra: The True Story of Jac Holzman's Visionary Record Label, published in 2010. He lives in London.

Reviews for I've Always Kept a Unicorn: The Biography of Sandy Denny

I've Always Kept a Unicorn is rich in insight from those who loved and despaired of her. While never over-embroidering the story, Houghton builds it through the intelligent and sensitive recall of everyone from Thompson to the Guardian's Richard Williams. The Guardian Mick Houghton's scrupulously researched biography draws a detailed picture both of Denny's increasingly complex mental state and of the London folk scene in the Sixties and Seventies. . . [An] authoritative and comprehensive biography. Fiona Sturges Independent Houghton unpicks her story with sensitivity, but does not shy away from the more unpalatable details. . . [An] admirably level-headed account. Graeme Thomson Mail on Sunday I've Always Kept A Unicorn lays legitimate claim to being the most comprehensive account yet of a career of often unrealised promise Uncut 8/10 A flaws-and-all celebration of one woman and her timeless music Mojo 4**** Expertly written, definitive biography Shindig 5****