Steeleye Span

Oh damn. I've been listening to early Steeleye Span albums over Christmas, they were the perfect accompaniment to snow and mulled wine and curtains drawn tight against the cold black nights etc. And "All Around my Hat" is from my childhood - I think one of my elder brothers, or my Dad had the 7" single - so I have a big soft spot for it.
RIP

― DavidM, Monday, 28 December 2009 10:47 (9 hours ago) Bookmark

If y'all haven't heard, the Kemps have a daughter named Rose who now has a really cool solo record out on One Little Indian. One of my favorite releases of 2008.

myspace.com/rosekemp

I like the noise guitar riff at the end of "Alison Gross" a lot.

Love "Serving Girls Holiday":

http://grooveshark.com/#/search?q=maddy+prior+%26+tim+hart

so good.

first 3 albums are excellent. electric folk > folk rock

I got a cheap collection of the next five (or six) albums and even those are mostly very good (albeit none of this is a patch on Fairport, pre-78/79 Richard & Linda or maybe even Pentangle).

been listening to the first one a lot lately -- Liege & Lief II, basically! even though i dig the drum-less thing later on, dave mattacks is pretty great on it. only issue i have is that i sort of expect some rad thompson-esque guitar solos to break out every now and then.

ok this is killer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q7RIwvvnNT0

^^^^live tv performance from some medieval castle in 1974

naturally

I haven't checked that link but i think i have the program its from a 1974 bbc show. Interesting stuff, featuri.ng a morri.s side. An area that was being explored elsewhere by Hutchings who left after 3rd lp.
Those 1st 3 can be had as The Lark In The Morning a 2cd on Sanctuary. That stuff is really dark electric psych while being all traditional songs.

yeah it's a bbc thing! totally fun, devolves into a rambunctious morris dance party. well, not that rambunctious, but still.

I would love to come across some original material that sounded like those early dark SS tracks. Still not found anything that resembles it very closely.
Do know things like Trees (who have a large feature in the new Flashback! btw), Spirogyra, Stone Angel, Spriguns, Caedmon and Carol Of Harvest but don't think they are too similar.

mr fox, maybe? i do believe the peggs were at one point discussing plans with hutchings to form what would become steeleye span soon after (there's even a hutchings co-credit on one song from the first album i think)

damn, rocket cottage is pretty great! always kind of avoided it because of the ridiculous cover art, but it is mostly a super tight trad-folk-pop LP. great riffs, cool production.

i've not heard that one and have been (un)fairly wary of anything beyond below the salt. maybe it's time for me to make a change?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGRbPYhHM64

^ enjoyed seeing this on tv the other day, which is michael chapman backed by 3 steeleye people iirc

SEVEN HUNDRED ELVES COME OUT DA WOOD

3 2 (pegrum & kemp) xp

I think all of their '70s studio albums are good-to-great!

oh nice, never saw that chapman clip!
yeah, i'm finding that all of the 70s steeleye span records are pretty solid, though there's certainly a bit of filler throughout. just an interesting/weird band -- the more pop stuff is actually really successful to my ears.

i do remember enjoying the ridiculous guitar sound on parcel of rogues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_BXh6DL4lg

Love that ridiculous guitar -- so massive on "Alison Gross," e.g. Plus Rogues has "Cam Ye O'er Frae France," which is maybe my favorite Span song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL0A9bGQaZk

(Also has a fascinatin' backstory: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2010/03/great-moments-in-pop-music-history-steeleye-span-cam-ye-oer-frae-france/.)

argh i read that url as steeleye-span-cum-oer-yr-face

Ha.

I like or love everything through All Around My Hat, but I've never listened to Rocket Cottage. I should.

lol
yeah the guitar! there are some heavy riffs. were steeleye heavier than sabbath?
rocket cottage also brings in some funky wah action too.

the albionic hard rock thing was kind of underused IMO. but then Songs from the Wood is one of my favorite records of its decade so what do i know.

'King Henry' flattening me rn with its tick tocking menace

commoner's crown and storm force ten are pretty sweet lps

I think all of their '70s studio albums are good-to-great!

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, April 25, 2014 9:06 AM

agree w/this

(xp) "Storm Force Ten" is a favourite of mine

I've been listening to Below to Hat lately. Some weird pop crossover bits sure. Parcel is a particular fav.

I find a lot of that era of Steeleye Span a bit annoying and worryingly Jethro Tull-like (I mean after "Below the Salt" and before "Storm Force Ten")
― TS: Mick Ralphs vs. Ariel Bender (Dada), Tuesday, April 18, 2006 9:27 AM

a little, yeah. all around my hat has some kind of corny pub-rock boogie on it (including the title track). but i still like it pretty well.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Tuesday, April 18, 2006 4:36 PM (thirteen years ago)

Ian Anderson has production credits on Now We Are Six and Prior's Woman In The Wings. I actually started my Steeleye journey recently with Now We Are Six for this reason (from reading the books in the recent Tull reissues). But my first Prior thing was Silly Sisters with June Tabor.

I'm loving Now We Are Six. Her Americanized singing voice on the last track is wonderful.

Track order varies a lot in different releases. Mos versions include a shorter "Thomas the Rhymer", including mine, I think.

"Seven Hundred Elves" is great but I think "Drink Down The Moon" is the best thing on it, very lovely.

Watched that BBC performance with the castle and Morris dancers. When she's singing by the fireplace without a microphone is that an overdub or is she projecting her voice that well. Always liked something Robyn Hitcock said about her voice sounding like it could be shot across the sky.

The part in "Drink Down The Moon" where she cries "I'M A BIRD and a very pretty bird" is so amazing.

Sung a bit differently here but still very good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugomHQ70F2w

She's an amazing singer, who tends to get overlooked imo.

Bass playing on Steeleye records is so good. First Ashley Hutchings and then Rick Kemp, two great players.

woooooow this is cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWK_zzrS1xw

oh hell yeah! nice ...

Oh man, great stuff!

what the hell is this show. I love it.

I have vague memories of shows similar to this in the mid/late 70s - I know this is 1970 - lots of kids shows looked exactly like the way this one does for instance, super nostalgic for me, in a weird way.

it has some deep dreamlike qualities

yeah we're just kicking it with steeleye span in an apartment....brb let's take a quick break to show you how to make a dulcimer

feel like I need a prestige drama tv series about the early music scene in england in the 1970s

Oh God yeah, catnip

"it's like mad men — but with pan flutes!"

Detailed Vanity Fair article about how the costume dept uncovered a stash of uncut period corduroy in Hereford.

iirc there's a pretty good Fairport set from the same show.

Yeah the Fairport set is killer too ... Britfolk Beach Party A-Go-Go! The crowd shots in this are worth the price of admission alone. What a scene.

for whatever reason, while liking lots of adjacent stuff (contemporaries in british folk, fairport, sandy denny, I suppose you could even extend this to the Pogues given Terry Woods), I never really paid any attention to the Span until last night and then I ran across this song which is so good I'm going to get my band to do a cover of it (though I think we'll rewrite the music to the second part to be noisy). this is like proto Nick Cave stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSUH6YPM9oI

picked up Hark! The Village Wait this weekend, excellent stuff, not far off of Fairport/The Bunch etc...few songs are Hutchings/Mattacks rhythm section. overall really excellent, better than their rep would suggest.

One of their best albums imo.

I was going to bring them up +on the Lankum thread recently. Another mainly trad based band who morph everything into a really idiosyncratic version of psychedelia. I'm still really interested in hearing bands that sound like those first 3 lps but do original material.
Ashley Hutchings seems to bring a touch of something I'd think of as psychedelic to a lot of the work he's put out. I also really love the Albion Country Band's lp Battle of the Field for an inner glow that reminds me of kosmische stuff. Also worth seeing if you can get hold of early live stuff with Richard and Linda Thompson in the band an an unexpected cover of the Left Banke's Barterers and Their Wives.

Steeleye Span are worth hearing the next couple of lps by at least too. Below The Salt and Parcel of Rogues and possibly a few others. Not quite the same but still have something.
I'd also check out Sweeney's Men, the Irish folk band that Terry Woods had been with.It seems that the version of the band featuring Henry McCullough on electric guitar were a major influence/imperative in Hutchings forming the band. Unfortunately there don't seem tio be any recordings of that lineup. The 2 lps they did put out are pretty great. 1st lp the s/t one is a 3 piece acoustic folk band, 2nd one drops a member and becomes more spacious. I love it. band broke up or morphed intoSteeleye Span but Woods and his wife didn't get along with the other couple in the band. Which does at least mean there is a classic s/t lp by The Woods Band

"When I Was On Horseback" was the song that turned me on to Steeleye Span, it reminded me of the Velvet Underground and Popol Vuh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAWz9SR5_dE

Hills of Greenmore sounds incredibly ahead of its time, not too far off the more psych indie folk of the late 00s

wow i think i'm going to get into this band now.

i think their first ten studio albums are varying degrees of good to great. they're so underappreciated.

I picked up a set called Hills of Greenmore in I think the late 90s which was a 2cd cheap label compilation which had the Hutchings era stuff in non chronological order. So great stuff but couldn't really tell what came from where, I didn't seem to come across the really early stuff much, then picked up the Lark In The morning set when it came out in the early 00ies which at least was in chronological order and had some kind of linernotes.
I think there have been more recent multidisc sets of the early stuff, possibly 1st 5 lps together and a 2nd volume of similar length following it .

I'd definitely look into what Ashley Hutchings did on leaving the band cos the Albion stuff is great. No Roses with his recent wife Shirley Collins doing a rare electric setting set, Battle of The Field which is a more proggy take on traditional and traditional style music. PLus definitely the 1st 4 Fairport Convention sets and the BBC material . Hope those don't need to be mentioned really

... first 5.

My gateway into them was Zeni Geva's version of their version of When I Was On Horseback. On reflection I'd say Steeleye's version is superior, but has less grinding noise riffery.

digging into Hark! more...this is definitely up there with any Fairport, Thompson, Pentangle etc. just excellent.

also that whole electric UK folk thing....the records just sound so beautiful, like the apex of recording bands.

i wish i could go back in time and convince my teenage self to pay attention when i saw them open for procol harum in 1973. no recollection whatsoever. same deal when i (apparently) saw lindisfarne open for yes in 1972.

oh wow that would have been amazing

with all this stuff i just love the guitars, those twisty serpentine parts derived from folk modal scales, that stinging fender tone

also the super dead, woody drum and bass sounds

from hark to parcel it's all stellar stuff, then it starts getting just a bit iffy for me. along with hark the next two albums featuring martin carthy are def my faves. the prior/hart summer solstice lp is well worth checking out too!

I think those Pentangle records are about my favorite sounding records ever. That rhythm section!

All I have of Steeleye is Parcel of Rogues, which I like fine, but felt like it leaned too much in the rock direction. I need to check out the earlier stuff.3

I think the thing I heard earliest was All Around My Hat which I think was a hit or certainly got a lot of airplay in the mid 70s. & first thing I bought I think was Now We Are Six though can't quite remember at which point. I did note the AA Milne nod in the title.
I was being driven around to morris dances in my pre teens so may tie in with that.

But discovered the really early stuff in the wake of knowing the Fairport Convention stuff that Hutchings is on, those first 4 lps after which he left on the same day as Sandy Denny. Do wish there was more unofficial material from that era, could do with a couple more live sets.
The book the Guv'nor was pretty good but it has been a while since I read it and I think it may not have been reprinted since Helter Skelter books closed.

Can I just put in a good word for the Maddy Prior/June Tabor album 'Silly Sisters'? Amazing folk album, their voices sound incredible together

Alan Partridge is a fan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCBV-VrfxV4

i think i have to admit that the cover art of basically every record is a factor in me avoiding them for so long