Sandy has been called Britain’s finest female singer-songwriter by Mojo and Uncut and is considered a true founder of the British folk rock movement. Her composition, “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” has been covered by numerous artists as diverse as Judy Collins, Nina Simone and Cat Power and is now regarded as a classic. As well as her solo material and work with Fairport Convention, she is also noted for her duet with Robert Plant on the song “The Battle Of Evermore” from Led Zepellin’s IV. She remains to this day the only guest vocalist on a Led Zeppelin album.

Universal Music is putting together a strictly limited edition 19 CD box set. 11 of the CDs feature Sandy’s studio recordings with Alex Campbell, Johnny Silvo, Fotheringay, Strawbs, Fairport Convention and solo with additional content; outtakes, demos and live recordings. There are 8 CDs of bonus material; unreleased songs, demos, unreleased BBC recordings, alternate takes, live recordings, acoustic versions, and rare radio interviews. This set includes the legendarily ‘long lost’ Lord Bateman, pencilled in for her first solo album, The North Star Grassman and The Ravens.

The set is lavishly packed and features all new artwork. It comes with a 72 page 11″ square hardback book containing over 100 rare and mostly unseen photographs, Sandy’s handwritten lyrics (many of which are unrecorded songs) and fascinating memorabilia. Each CD is housed in an individual gatefold digipak sleeve. The box also contains reproductions of: a beautiful original Island press pack, an exceptionally rare A3 promo colour poster for Northstar Grassman and The Ravens, a set of Postcards, the receipt for the purchase of her first piano and one of Sandy’s handwritten notebooks.

The boxset will be limited to only 3000 copies worldwide. A second edition, limited to 100 sets, is available only from the Island 50 web store. It comes with a framed print of the artwork, signed by the artist and individually addressed to each purchaser. The complete track details have not been announced as the Island archive is still being searched. Discoveries will be announced on Lost Tunes’ Twitter page; http://twitter.com/losttunesdotcom

You can pre-order the boxset from this address:
http://island50.sandbag.uk.com/Store/DII-5658-5-sandy+denny++limited+edition+box+set.html

During the gathering of material for the boxset, an unidentified recording has been brought to light. From a reel of Sandy’s home recordings sent to Universal by her estate, there is a recording of Sandy singing an unknown folk song. Can you identify the track? If people recognise the lyrics they are asked to email Universal at infoumc@umusic.com

These are the lyrics that can be made out:
“I saw a dark star against the black sky
Of a night thirteen hundred years long
It cast shrouding shadows upon the desert
of the dark moons that formed in her eyes
On the vowel of her rack the sun never smiled
And the noon of the day was in shadow
And the sky left its beard on the black barren earth
And the … was … in …
On a shrine of black flowers Ethusel lay dead
as he had for thirteen centuries
At his feet five crows stood and watched to his keep
And the whisper of time sighed around the hills
Pannasowna has tried fair winged [weird] for it stead
though the sky’s in search of the star
and the serpent entwined about the stag’s head
tried to reach out and poison her hair.
O no, Pannasowna, you will not go far
Ethusel [Methusa] has only one hour
and if you do not reach him before it is over
then rada falls into the ocean. [then the world falls into the sea].
Pannasowna took her form and she stabbed [pierced] the serpent’s eye
and he fell through the clouds to the land. [sea]
As she rode on and on full of laden stones
With horizons of life in her unsung [till she came to …]
It was then that the daylight became the dark night
[and] she recalled [remembered] what the farmer [sermon] had said:
When the night becomes black and no sound can be heard,
You have come to the land of … [Fardinarel]
And she found the dark star hanging low in the sky
and she gathered it up in her arms
and she rode to the shrine where Ethusel lay dead [and she rode to the place that was so …]
and she placed the dark star on her …
And the star became bright and it shone on the land
and the shrouds of darkness were gone
and Ethusa was standing before Pannazorna
and the light came to bear in her hair.”