All Our Own Work

“I met Sandy Denny at the Troubadour in Earl’s Court in late 1966,” Strawbs vocalist, guitarist, and banjoist David Cousins said. “I dropped in late one night to hear an angel singing. Sandy was sitting on a stool, wearing a white dress, a straw hat, and playing a Gibson Hummingbird guitar. When she came off stage, I introduced myself and asked if she fancied joining a group. ‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘Strawbs,’ I replied. ‘OK,’ she said. I went to the pay phone and called Tony Hooper to tell him we had a girl singer.” Sandy Denny & the Strawbs were booked across the North Sea for a fortnight, with an option to record what would be their only album. The quartet spent days in a makeshift studio set up on the theatrical stage of Vanløse Bio, breaking down the Tandberg three-track reel-to-reel in time for the movie theater’s evening screenings before heading off to their nightly gig. In all, a dozen original songs were set down, including Denny’s recently completed “Who Knows Where Th