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Sandy Denny - Like An Old Fashioned Waltz (1973)

Track listing:
  1. Solo 4:24
  2. Like An Old Fashioned Waltz 4:11
  3. Whispering Grass 3:58
  4. Friends 3:33
  5. Carnival 5:43
  6. Dark the Night 4:27
  7. At the End of the Day 6:27
  8. Until the Real Thing Comes Alo 3:41
  9. No End 6:34

Notes

Produced and Engineered by Trevor Lucas and John Wood
Recorded at Sound Techniques, London and A&M Studios, Los Angeles Summer 1973

Musicians
Sandy, vocals, piano, acoustic guitars;
Trevor Lucas, guitar;
Jerry Donahue, electric guitar;
Richard Thompson, guitar;
Diz Disley, guitar;
Jean Roussel, keyboards;
John “Rabbit” Bundrick, keyboards;
Ian Armit, piano;
Alan Skidmore, saxophone;
Pat Donaldson, bass;
Dave Pegg, bass;
Danny Thompson, bass;
Gerry Conway, drums;
Dave Mattacks, drums

Orchestral arrangement by Harry Robinson with whispering brass by Bob Leaper.

With Like an Old Fashioned Waltz, Sandy Denny expands on the more polished moments that her previous work, Sandy (1972), had suggested. The tone throughout most of the record is melancholy and personal, with gentle piano, rich strings, and barely a trace of her British folk roots. "Solo," one of her best songs, opens the album with a sense of apprehension and yearning, while cuts such as the beautifully vivid title track, the longing "At the End of the Day," and the evocative closer "No End" nicely follow suit. The Ink Spots covers "Whispering Grass" and "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" break the mood a bit, but it's a testament to the breadth of Denny's talent that she's able to make this sort of jazz-inflected pop work for her. These two songs seem to hint at a new direction that never really materialized in her final years, though an entire album of Ink Spots tunes was actually rumored at one point. As Sandy Denny's last solo work for four years, Like an Old Fashioned Waltz remains an intimate and moving record.