Sandy Denny’s life and luminous talent celebrated by Linda Thompson

Sandy Denny’s life and luminous talent celebrated by Linda Thompson

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold August 11, 2026 Duration: 28:32

‘Sandy Denny: A People’s History’ has just been published, memories from fellow musicians, old friends, producers, writers, fans and admirers. Linda Thompson met her when they were both 16 and was devoted to her ‘til she died in 1978 – “she’s still with me, I talk to her all the time”. She looks back here at their lives in Soho bars, folk clubs and studios, the world they inhabited and the musicians they both knew. Among the many highlights …

 

… meeting Sandy in 1966, onstage doing Jackson Frank’s You Never Wanted Me. “Eight million cigarettes a day but such breath control!”

 

… why her singing and songwriting were unique

 

… high times at the Colony Club with Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon - “famously grumpy”

 

… “she didn’t put up with bullshit. Cross her and she’d deck you”

 

… memories of Nick Drake – “spectral and gorgeous”

 

… the repercussions of the Fairport car crash

 

… memories of her family home in Wimbledon (on the cover of Unhalfbricking)

 

… recording ad jingles for Ski Yoghurt and ‘flour so fine, it flows and it flows’ - £15 an hour, “a fortune”

 

… making demos of Nick Drake songs with Elton John, “so full of Valium I had to be held up to the mic”  

 

… sharing a flat with Tim Buckley in Holland Park

 

… “anyone who can bear to listen to their own records must be no bloody good”

 

… and the script Nick Hornby started about the life of Richard and Linda Thompson.

 

Order ‘Sandy Denny: A People’s History’ here: https://burningshed.com/georgia-rose-lucas_sandy-denny-a-peoples-history_book

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear


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There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

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