Fotheringay

Fotheringay
Fotheringay c. 1970
Background information
Genres	Folk rock/Electric folk
Years active	1970 (1970)–1971 (1971) 2015 (2015)–present
Labels	Island Records
Associated acts	Fairport Convention The Bunch
Members	Gerry Conway Jerry Donahue Pat Donaldson Sally Barker Kathryn Roberts PJ Wright
Past members	Sandy Denny Trevor Lucas

Fotheringay was a short-lived British folk rock group, formed in 1970 by singer Sandy Denny on her departure from Fairport Convention. The band drew its name from her 1968 composition "Fotheringay" about Fotheringhay Castle, in which Mary, Queen of Scots had been imprisoned. The song originally appeared on the 1969 Fairport Convention album, What We Did on Our Holidays, Denny's first album with that group. There have been live performances by a band formed by three of Fotheringay's surviving members with other musicians in 2015 and 2016.

Two former members of Eclection, Trevor Lucas and Gerry Conway, and two former members of Poet and the One Man Band, Jerry Donahue and Pat Donaldson (bass), completed the line-up responsible for what was intended to be the quintet's first album. This folk-based set included several Denny originals, notably "Nothing More", "The Sea" and "The Pond and The Stream", as well as versions of Gordon Lightfoot's "The Way I Feel" and Bob Dylan's "Too Much of Nothing". Though during the year of its original release the album featured in two of the UK's music papers' Top 20s (Melody Maker and NME), it did not meet commercial expectations, and pressures on Denny to undertake a solo career increased. She had been voted Britain's number 1 singer for two consecutive years in Melody Maker's readers poll. The album peaked at No. 18 in the UK Albums Chart.