I've Always Kept a Unicorn: The Biography of Sandy Denny

Arts & Photography

Houghton, Mick

Music

Faber&Faber

I've Always Kept a Unicorn tells the story of Sandy Denny, one of the greatest British singers of her time and the first female singer-songwriter to produce a substantial and enduring body of original songs. Sandy Denny laid down the marker for folk-rock when she joined Fairport Convention in 1968, but her music went far beyond this during the seventies. After leaving Fairport she formed Fotheringay, whose influential eponymous album was released in 1970, before collaborating on a historic one-off recording with Led Zeppelin - the only other vocalist to record with Zeppelin in their entire career - and releasing four solo albums across the course of the decade. Her tragic and untimely death came in 1978. Sandy emerged from the folk scene of the sixties — a world of larger-than-life characters such as Alex Campbell, Jackson C. Frank, Anne Briggs and Australian singer Trevor Lucas, whom she married in 1973. Their story is at the core of Sandy's later life and work, and is told with the assistance of more than sixty of her friends, fellow musicians and contemporaries, one of whom, to paraphrase McCartney on Lennon, observed that she sang like an angel but was no angel.

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Faber & Faber Social

A gonzo tour through the glory years of indie rock n' roll and acid house by one of the best-loved characters in the music business. In 1980, Mick Houghton set up his own PR company, Brassneck Publicity, and for the next twenty years the list of his charges reads like a Who’s Who of some of the greatest, most influential, and most dysfunctional cult groups of the post-punk era and beyond – the Jesus and Mary Chain, Felt, Sonic Youth, the Wedding Present, and Spiritualized among them. In the 1990s, Houghton judiciously sidestepped the major trends in music – baggy, grunge, and Britpop, and his reputation for attracting outsiders led to him working with artists as disparate as Sun Ra, Andrew Oldham, Ken Kesey, Bert Jansch, Stereolab, Mercury Rev, and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. Keen to shed the Britpop tag, Elastica approached Houghton and succeeded by taking five years to complete their second album ("Justine Frischmann thanked me for keeping them out of the press during that time"). But the three acts Houghton is most closely identified with are Echo &amp; the Bunnymen ("whose greatness stemmed from a conviction only to do what was spiritually correct which usually meant them being willfully stubborn"), Julian Cope, the Teardrop Explodes ("One long evening of excess I spent with Julian inspired the classic "Out of My Mind on Dope and Speed"), and the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu in all their guises ("We arrived in a fleet of white stretch limos at a clearing in a Surrey field where the K Foundation was exhibiting a million pounds in cash while Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty circled the perimeters in two orange Saracen armored vehicles blasting out Abba’s "Money Money Money"). Between them, these three groups played a significant part in shaping the musical landscape of the 1980s and 1990s, and – as confidant and co-conspirator – Houghton was always with them along the way, carefully navigating the minefield of rivalries and contrasting fortunes. It is Houghton's indefatigable belief that it was always the music that came first and it is his knack of attracting so-called difficult and troubled artists that makes Fried &amp; Justified such an amusing, insightful and uplifting tale.

Fried & Justified

Humor & Entertainment

A candid frontline account of an illustrious gonzo career as an independent music publicist during the post-punk heyday of the 80s and 90s, featuring an introduction by Bill Drummond and new cover artwork by Jimmy Cauty.

Becoming Elektra is an account of Elektra Records in the Jac Holzman years, from 1950 to 1973. It tells the story of Elektra's growth from a small independent folk label to a major, multi-faceted, hit making concern. Jac Holzman's role in founding and running the company is central to the story, and his capacity for lateral thinking - that led to innovations such as the first-ever sampler album, and a million-selling series of sound effects records - is a recurring theme. But the book is not just a story of one man's business success. It is also about the label's artists and the great music they produced, and other key people who gave the company its identity. Becoming Elektra places the label in a broad context. A gripping narrative drawing in elements of musical and cultural history, and biographies of the main participants in the story, the book opens with a pivotal moment in Elektra's history, when Holzman discovered The Doors. It then goes back to the previously untold story of Elektra in the 50s, when the label brought folk music to a wide audience. Moving into the 60s the story takes in artists that have had an extraordinary resonance down the years including some, such as Tim Buckley, who are far more popular today than in their lifetime. His story is told, along with those of artists that read like an inventory of 60s and 70s musical innovation: The Doors, Love, Judy Collins, Tom Paxton, Tim Buckley, Fred Neil, David Ackles, Phil Ochs, Bread, Queen, The Incredible String Band, Carly Simon, The Stooges and The MC5.

Becoming Elektra: The true story of Jac Holzman's visionary record label

Jawbone Press

Becoming Elektra tells the incredible true story of the pioneering Elektra Records label and its far-sighted founder, Jac Holzman, who built a small folk imprint into a home for some of the most groundbreaking, important, and enduring music of the rock era.
Placing the Elektra label in a broader context, the book presents a gripping narrative of musical and cultural history that reads like an inventory of all that is exciting and innovative about the 60s and 70s: The Doors, Love's Forever Changes, Tim Buckley's Goodbye &amp; Hello, The Stooges, The MC5's Kick Out The Jams, Queen and Queen II, The Incredible String Band, Carly Simon's No Secrets, and many, many more.
First published in 2010, Becoming Elektra was praised as 'eye-opening' (Q) and a 'dazzling narrative' (The Sun), and for 'perfectly encapsulating the enigmatic, unpredictable spirit' of the label (Record Collector). This fully revised and expanded edition includes a brand new foreword by John Densmore of The Doors and draws on extensive new interviews with a wide range of Elektra alumni, including Tom Paley, Judy Henske, Johnny Echols, Jean Ritchie, and Bernie Krause, as well as further conversations with Holzman himself. It also adds two new chapters: a look at Elektra in Britain in the 60s and a reappraisal of the label's 70s output.

Becoming Elektra: The True Story of Jac Holzman's Visionary Record Label (Revised & Expanded Edition)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Houghton, Mick. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Houghton, Mick

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Houghton, Mick. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

I've Always Kept a Unicorn: The Biography of Sandy Denny

I've Always Kept a Unicorn: The Biography of Sandy Denny

Fried & Justified

Fried & Justified

Becoming Elektra: The true story of Jac Holzman's visionary record label

Becoming Elektra: The True Story of Jac Holzman's Visionary Record Label (Revised & Expanded Edition)