A Tribute to David Sanborn

Sanborn with David Bowie in 1975

Here was an artist who had been a feature of my life since I first heard him on record in the early 1970s. On his passing this week, I felt a tinge of regret that I might have taken him for granted of late. Time for a reappraisal of his career.

On Sunday nights as mid-teenagers a bunch of us would gather at a girlfriend's house in Pinner. We'd sit in her bedroom and listen to records. Actually only two records, but they were both excellent - Steely Dan's Katy Lied and David Bowie's Young Americans. 

The title track of the Bowie album had that instantly familiar intro sax line and solo by David Sanborn that everyone recognises, whether they know his name or not.  

Sanborn at Woodstock

Sanborn's first major exposure (to a mere 400,000 people) had come, aged 24, as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. He appeared at the 1969 Woodstock festival with the Butterfield band, though not in the movie. 

Then in 1972, he got his first big exposure on record, featuring on Stevie Wonder's classic album Talking Book, on the gorgeous track Tuesday Heartbreak. 

It was a sound that became Sanborn's calling card, a signature style that would make him a first-call session player from then on. 

When Bowie decided to record in the US in 1975, it was an inspired move to have Sanborn provide the saxophone riff that would usher in his new sound. 

Young Americans was a bold change of style for Bowie, one that some found difficult to take. From Glam rocker to Soul crooner? Come off it mate! But our little gang loved the new album. Sanborn's sax was integral to the whole vibe, especially on tracks like Win and Fascination.

His solo career took off in the late 1970s and early 80s, with albums such as Hideaway, Voyeur and Change Of Heart. His collaboration with Bob James, Double Vision won them both a Grammy. In all, Sanborn won six.

He kept the best company in his choice of backing musicians and collaborators, not the least of whom was bassist Marcus Miller, who was just 19 when they first worked together. Tracks like Chicago Song and Run For Cover demonstrate how important Miller was to Sanborn's sound in that classic 1980s period. 

Sanborn capitalised on his popularity as one of New York's finest, leading the house band on Saturday Night Live and featuring on David Letterman's late-night chat shows. There are some legendary performances from those days on Youtube. 

Here's the cream of New York's session players, including Marcus, guitarist Hiram Bullock and drummer Omar Hakim playing the Weather Report track Teen Town. 

He also co-hosted Night Music, a late-night music show on television with Jools Holland, and curated a syndicated radio program, The Jazz Show with David Sanborn.

I first saw him live in London in the 1980s, as the support act for Al Jarreau. Sanborn's band included drummer Steve Gadd, so my mate Graham and I - both mad keen drummers - went along two nights running to check him out. 

Here's one of my favourite clips of Sanborn, Mike Mainieri, Robben Ford et al at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1981.

Here's Run For Cover with George Duke and Marcus Miller

And from Night music, here's the band backing Miles Davis on Tutu, introduced by Dave Sanborn.  

Of his more recent recordings, I picked up the album Time Again on a business trip in Singapore in about 2005. And I'm still playing it. Again, just the best musicians; Steve Gadd, Mike Mainieri, Randy Brecker, Christian McBride, playing a mix of old and new. Here's a live version of the first track on Time Again, Comin' Home Baby. 

Also on this blog:

Miles Davis and the track name mix-up on Kind Of Blue

 A tribute to jazz giant Chick Corea

Pat Metheny, Live in 2020 and Way Back

Jazz, Blues, Folk - Musical adventures in New York

Sandy Denny and Fotheringay - A Beguiling Songbook

In his book Electric Eden, Rob Young says the 1970 album Fotheringay can be seen as “effectively the first proper Sandy Denny record, heaving and tossing with briny swells.”

I kind of agree with him, since the very reason Sandy had left Fairport Convention in 1969, soon after the release of their landmark album Liege & Lief, was a desire to record her own songs.  

Of course, Fotheringay was a group, but Sandy’s songs formed the core of their repertoire and it was her money that funded their short life, before she buckled under pressure to go out on her own.  

Original 1970 pink label version

Recorded at Sound Techniques, produced by Joe Boyd and engineered by Jerry Boys, the Fotheringay album was released in the spring of 1970. The band toured the UK and the album sold reasonably well, but not enough to put the band up in the same league as Fairport. 

Despite the excellent musicianship displayed by bassist Pat Donaldson, drummer Gerry Conway and lead guitarist Jerry Donahue, they weren’t revered in the same way as Ashley, Richard, Swarb, Simon and DM were in Fairport. In particular, Sandy’s boyfriend, Trevor Lucas was seen as a bit of a chancer, riding on her coat-tails.

Young said Lucas had made a modest reputation for himself as an Australian folkie: “Contemporaries remember him as competent but with little musical talent; a good-time guy who latched onto his partner’s talents.”

Fairport and Fotheringay (Nick Drake, the Incredible String Band et al) shared a management company, Joe Boyd's Witchseason. Boyd and Island Records boss Chris Blackwell were adamant that Sandy should reap the rewards being offered her as a solo artist. Their antipathy towards Fotheringay proved to be the band’s undoing. 

Later, in 1973, Sandy told Rolling Stone, "They hated us at the Witchseason office. They kept saying, look, you're not Fairport and you're not The Incredibles."

On a purely musical level, these attitudes seem unfair, because the Fotheringay album hangs together very well. It contains some of Sandy's best songs, some highly credible covers and some terrific ensemble playing. As Young wrote: “Fotheringay’s mix of slow rocking English and Scottish ballads and windswept Denny originals made for a beguiling songbook.”

“Songs like The Sea, The Pond and the Stream and Winter Winds (all from Fotheringay) are beset by gusts of wind stirring up the summer’s dust, rumbling clouds and approaching squalls. The season is typically autumn or early winter."

Fotheringay live

Complementing and contrasting those songs on the album are covers of Gordon Lightfoot’s The Way I Feel and Bob Dylan’s Too Much Of Nothing, the latter of which could be said to be the definitive version of the song. Trevor Lucas does a fine job on the vocal, backed up by Sandy and Pat live, while Jerry's soloing is, as always, impeccable. 

The final track on the album, Banks of the Nile is one of Sandy's best traditional arrangements, topped off with her divine angelic singing.  

Fotheringay toured the UK, often supporting Fairport Convention. Sandy continued winning best female vocalist polls and pressure on her to go solo was incessant, ultimately breaking the band apart before they could complete a second album.

In his biography 'White Bicycles', Boyd said, “From the moment she left Fairport, Sandy and I did nothing but argue. I could get a big advance from A&M for a solo album, but she wanted to form a band with her boyfriend." Lucas was a spendthrift, but as Boyd pointed out, "the money keeping everyone on salary was Sandy’s."

At Trevor’s behest they bought a massive PA system (nickname: Stonehenge) and a Bentley to get around in. Richard Thompson recalls, “Each custom-made cabinet was the size of a sarsen stone, weighed a ton and took about six people to lift. There would be two cabinets on each side of the stage and one laid across the top, hence the name."

Sandy was bankrolling all this, to Joe Boyd’s increasing frustration: “One night in December working on the second Fotheringay album, I lost my temper after the fortieth unsuccessful take of John The Gun. Sandy and I went out and got drunk. She asked me if I would stay if she broke up the group and made a solo album.”

Sandy and Jerry Donahue

Thus were sown the seeds of Sandy and Joe’s estrangement. He had been offered a job running Warner Brothers' film music department in Los Angeles. From their drunken chat, Sandy thought Joe had committed to staying in London. She told the band it was over. 

In a 1973 interview with Rolling Stone, Boyd admitted he said if Sandy would break up the group he would think about staying on in London to produce her. “The next day I told her I couldn’t, that I had to go to LA”. He had already signed the Warners contract and couldn’t get out of it. “She never forgave me,” he said in White Bicycles.

“Fotheringay was a fabulous band,” Sandy told Rolling Stone. That its demise was unnecessary and borne of a misunderstanding made it all the more frustrating for Sandy and the others. It wasn’t the end of their working relationship though. In his biography, ‘Beeswing’, Richard Thompson said that for her first solo record Sandy wanted to have musicians she was comfortable with, which included Pat and Gerry from Fotheringay.

Pat and Gerry

“Even though Fotheringay didn’t exist, half of it was still on board! It was a strange situation, but there didn’t seem to be any animosity. I think everyone knew that Sandy had been destined for a solo career sooner or later.”

If there could be any criticism of the solo material, it was that unlike the Fotheringay record, Sandy’s records were a bit one-paced. As Thompson noted, her compositions were full of her own unique character, and with that wonderful voice of hers she could carry any tune. But Richard and Trevor both recognised the need for some variety in tempo. However, their attempts to get her to write some rockier material largely failed.

While the members of Fotheringay all ended up working together subsequently, mainly under the Fairport umbrella, there was always a feeling of unfinished business. It wasn’t until 2008, long after Sandy and Trevor had passed, that Jerry Donahue curated the release of Fotheringay 2, derived mainly from those original 1971 sessions. It's a vibrant and worthy, if hugely-belated follow-up. 

Some of the material from the original aborted second album, including John The Gun and Late November, ended up on Sandy’s first real solo album in 1971, The Northstar Grassman and The Ravens. The Fotheringay material was augmented by new sessions helmed by Richard Thompson, but with Fotheringay members contributing. 

“Here at last was Sandy composing at the piano,” said Thompson, who admits he hadn’t realised before this how good Sandy was at the piano, because Fairport didn’t think to make one available to her. Here she is, playing Late November from Northstar Grassman.

“She had a beautiful touch and her voicings and harmonic sense were unique. Although you can hear her roots in traditional music, these are songs of their time…with a quality that endures.”

Fotheringay on Beat Club, playing Dylan's Too Much Of Nothing, 1970

BBC Session 1971, Gypsie Davy 

John The Gun, from Fotheringay 2, recorded 1971

Sandy Denny - Crazy Lady Blues, 1971

Sandy Denny - The Northstar Grassman and The Ravens

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What Is Led Zeppelin's Best Acoustic Song?

Duncan Browne's Journey

Music While You Work - A Guide

Joni Mitchell- The Hissing of Summer Lawns