Sandy Denny & The Strawbs - All Our Own Work: The Complete Sessions (Reissue) (1973/2010)

The Strawbs had only recently shortened their name from the Strawberry Hill Boys when leader and principle songwriter Dave Cousins heard Sandy Denny sing at a folk club in London, and was impressed enough to ask her to join his group that evening. Denny's tenure with the Strawbs lasted less than a year, but she was with them long enough to record an album with the group, cut in 1967 for a label in Denmark. The LP, titled All Our Own Work, has been reissued in a variety of forms over the years, and this 2010 edition on Witchwood Media is the most complete presentation to date, featuring the original 12 tracks from the album, nine outtakes, alternate versions, and demos, and three early demo recordings that appear here for the first time. In some respects, this music is atypical for both Denny and the Strawbs; this is a far cry from her more complex and traditionalist work with Fairport Convention and as a solo artist, and the progressive elements of the Strawbs music hadn't quite taken hold yet, with this music suggesting a middle ground between folk and pop with a dash of psychedelia. But if this is juvenilia for Denny and Cousins, it's also lovely music. Denny clearly possessed a glorious voice, and the two early recordings of "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" show she had the talent that would make her an icon of British folk, while in her performances of "And You Need Me" and "Sail Away to The Sea" she was a splendid interpreter of Cousins' material. Cousins' own singing is strong, confident, and charming, he was writing fine folk-leaning songs, and the two bluegrass-style instrumentals boast great picking from Cousins, Tony Hooper, and Ron Chesterman. All Our Own Work is ultimately a footnote in the careers of Sandy Denny and the Strawbs, but even though the band and their short-term female vocalist would go on to different things, this captures a fresh, youthful spirit and creative enthusiasm that's charming and thoroughly pleasing.