It was a noble gesture, albeit a bit heavy handed at times: an evening celebrating the music of the late, great English folk pop singer Sandy Denny, as presented by a host of talented, but at times over-reverent, contemporary artists. The brainchild of musical director Peter Holsapple -- who spearheaded a similar tribute to Nick Drake last year -- the tribute concert featured an impressive roster of marquee singers ranging from Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish to enigmatic Englishman Robyn Hitchock to former Bangles Vicki Peterson and Michael Steele to R.E.M. vet Mike Mills, all backed by Holsapple's versatile Americana string band, the Continental Drifters.

Denny's untimely death at the age of thirty-one in 1978 robbed the world of one modern music's loveliest voices. As a member (alongside guitarist Richard Thompson) of Fairport Convention in the Sixties and as a solo artist in the Seventies, Denny was one of the quiet titans of early electric folk. Possessed of a haunting alto and a yen for commanding arrangements of traditional songs as well for penning her own achingly lovely melodies ("Who Knows Where the Time Goes," "Listen, Listen," to name but two), she achieved that rare balance of equally enthusiastic admiration from critics, peers and, most tellingly for a folk artist, the public (Melody Maker readers voted her top British female vocalist in 1970 and '71). Rock audiences today might know her best from her scene-stealing harmony vocals on Led Zeppelin's "Battle of Evermore," but her body of work forms a cornerstone of influence for many of today's modern folk artists and singer/songwriters.

Needless to say, Holsapple & Co. deserve due credit for singling out a subject long overdue for the tribute treatment. The setting -- an intimate, beautiful church in Brooklyn Heights which routinely hosts performances for discriminating music lovers -- was perfectly suited for Denny's music, a somber offering of English folk balladry evoking mythic beauty, mystery and doomed love. But the evening would have been well served by a healthy injection of, if not frivolity, at least life. Even the condensed biography of Denny included in the program alludes to the singer's "boisterous personality," -- so why the moratorium on even acknowledging the crowd with any more than a slight head nod from each performer? Despite the indelible spirit of the music, the "come out, don't speak, sing your song and go" rules had the unfortunate effect of turning what could've/should've been a joyous revival into a solemn high mass.

Fortunately, the music was for the most part fabulous, but that's to be expected with a cast this formidable working with such a solid catalog of material. Most of the female vocalists on tap -- Katell Keineg, Vicki Peterson, Sloan Wainwright, Deni Bonet, Marti Jones, Susan Cowsill, Dana Kletter and Amanda Thorpe -- played it safe, singing their Denny standards as close to the original as possible. The resulting homogeneity at times suggested a mini-Lilith Fair, but considering that if Denny were still around she'd probably be headlining it, that was to be expected. Thankfully, the male singers on hand put a different spin on Denny's songs. Darius Rucker helped break the monotony by throwing the first curveball of the evening with his gravelly, energetic take on "Blackwaterside," followed shortly by Mike Mills' choirboy delivery of "It Suits Me Well." Sharper fare came with Jolene lead singer John Crooke's harrowing reading of "John the Gun," and Don Dixon's jazz/blues version of "Gold Dust," which was a mess, but at least offered a sense of much-needed jovial respite.

In the end, however, only two performers actually achieved musical transcendence: Irish-born, New York-based singer Susan McKeown and Robyn Hitchcock. McKeown, sandwiched in between Rucker and Mills, had the audacity to out-and-out upstage not only the talent around her, but the evening's muse herself. Denny's recording of the traditional gothic folk(lore) anthem "Tam Lin" on Fairport Convention's seminal Liege and Lief flirts with high drama but never quite delivers; McKeown grabbed both song and audience by the throat, dragged them through heaven and hell and back again, and left the stage to the loudest applause heard all evening. And Hitchcock's deceptively off-the-cuff reading of the equally epic "Mattie Groves" (literally read off a scrap of paper held in front of him) would have been a fine, invigorating note to end the evening on, even if it meant forsaking Katell Keineg's subsequent rote delivery of "the hit" ("Who Knows Where the Time Goes"), and the obligatory all-star "jam" on "Peace in the End." But of course, the prevailing theme tonight was all about convention.

RICHARD SKANSE
(November 24, 1998)