Fotheringay, formed and led by the late Sandy Denny, was a band with enormous potential. Some of it was realised in their eponymous 1970 album, although it received a lukewarm response from contemporary critics and record buyers alike.

Denny, who had recorded the song about Mary Queen of Scots from which the band took their name on 1969's What We Did on Our Holidays with Fairport Convention, left that band in 1969, not quite ready for a solo career.

She formed the new group with a view to performing more of her own songs and less traditional folk music than Fairport. Her colleagues in the new venture were her future husband, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist Trevor Lucas, drummer Gerry Conway, bassist Pat Donaldson, and guitarist Jerry Donahue, an American fascinated by English folk music who had quickly replaced Englishman Albert Lee. Denny's management and the record company, Island, did not support the project and pressured her to become a solo artist.

She was persuaded to abandon the group and two tracks, John the Gun and Late November, were recycled for her album The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. A third track, Gypsy Davey, was released on various compilations issued after her death from a brain haemorrhage in 1978. That left eight incomplete tracks gathering dust on studio shelves.

Under the leadership of Donahue, the surviving members of the band - Lucas died in 1989 - finished the album.

The first Fotheringay album apparently sounds better today than it did at the time - that too has been released on Fledgling with four live bonus tracks to complement the original nine tracks cut in the studio and released by Island - but it isn't as strong as the long delayed follow-up.

A mixture of traditional tunes arranged for a rock band - Eppie Moray, Wild Mountain Thyme, Gypsy Davey and Bold Jack Donahue - and originals by Denny and Lucas are complemented by one song each from Bob Dylan and the Strawbs' Dave Cousins, I Don't Believe You and Two Weeks Last Summer respectively.

Some of Denny's vocals are 'guides', originally intended to be replaced later in the recording process, but they are nevertheless stamped by her genius.

Folk melodies treated with jazz sophistication are sung with passion over the driving rock beat laid down by Conway and Donaldson. Lucas was in his best form on Knights of the Road and Restless.

The string bending virtuosity and tasteful harmony guitar work which have become Donahue's trademarks are tastefully deployed throughout, and his production remains true to the sound of the early 1970s, while presenting the music with 21st-century standard mastering clarity.

Except for Donaldson, all of the group, Denny included, joined various later incarnations of Fairport Convention. Donaldson, Conway and Donahue embarked on high-profile session careers, recording with Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Jethro Tull, Joan Armatrading and Gerry Rafferty among others.

Had they stayed together, on the basis of this album they could have equalled Fairport's finest moments. If Fotheringay 2 had come out in 1971 it would be remembered as a classic. Give this belatedly released version a year or two, and perhaps it yet will be.