Steeleye Span

If I had to pick 3 overall, I'd take Hark!, Commoner's Crown and Parcel of Rogues. But really, I'll listen to almost anything with Maddy Prior on it.

The later albums are okay, some are quite ROCK in places, whilst still being folky, which is genuinly odd. Even though the quality varies in the later albums you have to give them kudos for not doing that wimpy ethereal shit that they so easily could have slipped into.

I initially read that as Hark! The Village People

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. i love the earlier, more consciously folky stuff too, but i think on parcel of rogues they hit a great folk-rock balance, like the way the electric guitar drones on "misty moisty morning" and the fuzzbox chorus of "alison gross."

and i love those silly sisters records too. the june tabor thread was, indirectly, what made me go and revisit steeleye span.

Silly Sisters are great

RIP Tim Hart, the group's cofounder.

ooh RIP. First four Span records are pretty essential imo. And the records I've heard past those are better than I expected as well! Ned, what's the radio broadcast you have? I don't have any Steeleye bootleg-type stuff ...

Not sure, I'll have to dig up the CDR.

r.i.p.

i was thinking of them the other day cuz i just voted for a steeleye span album (the first one) in the alternative-'70s poll.

rip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbzHqwc1MIg

i love the sound of his electric dulcimer, as here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGHYl7Kv50g

Sorry to hear the news. For whatever reason (I think it partly goes back to my sifting through the alternative 70s poll nominations list, actually), I've been feeling more in the mood for English and Celtic folk music lately. I can't fathom why I've never owned a copy (not even a taped copy or an mp3) of anything by Fairport Convention. I know I have liked some Steeleye Span in the past, but it's all a bit fuzzy to me now. "All Around My Hat" has a corny beat, but somehow the sing rescues it for me. (I think it might introduce some subtle rhythmic thing that offsets the main rhythm.)

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

would watch

nice to see martin carthy with his tele there. seem to remember steeleye were on british telly quite a lot when i was a kid, definitely the first folk band that i knew anything about, them and ralph mctell

Yes, I think they were on television more than most rock bands of the era - folk music than being considered of more cultural value than pop music no doubt.

All Around My Hat was one of those slight outlier records I remember in my Dad's collection and was common to quite a few of my mate's parents' collections, like The Best Of Bread and that Janis Ian one that everyone seemed to have.

Great video. I've seen a snippet of it before, the "Lark in the Morning" clip has been on YouTube. But I didn't know what it was from.

Magnificent video. I'd happily watch a miniseries just about Tim Hart's hair.

were hart and prior ever a romantic couple? there was this intense rivalry between them and terry and gay woods in the first lineup and i never quite get what was going on there except the obvious "we are a pair and we advocate for our position in the group" but both of the woods made it sound like hart really did some toxic shit against them but i never heard specifics. i like the original lineup best because of the blend of female voices but obv. getting martin carthy in the fold was a huge coup. the post hutchings lineups have their fair share of good songs but it never was as good when he left.

people talk about dylan going electric but carthy plugging in is so fuckin bizarre i can hardly even. i guess swarb joining fairport showed him you could go there and not lose your artistry

His electric guitar playing was fucking great.

And I'm guessing he probably hasn't touched an electric guitar since!

yeah i'm a big fan but how much pre and post steeleye did he play electric? i mostly know brass monkey and his duo stuff with swarb, i don't recall any electric guitar

ah yeah xpost

I doubt he played electric guitar at all outside Steeleye, certainly not on record.

i'm guessing simon nicol did the electric playing in the orig albion band but not sure
nicol another "hey i'm doing electric lead now what a weird world i find myself in" during the angel delight years

dunno if it was a one-off but he seems to have done a gig with graham coxon in 2009 where he was playing a tele:

http://www.whiskyfun.com/Gigs/Graham-Coxon-2009.html

http://www.whiskyfun.com/Material24/Carthy-Hitchcock.jpg

(Robin Hitchcock on the right obv)

doesn't look like he's enjoying it much though tbf

weirdest fucking celebrity sighting by far in la is when i saw Martin Carthy in a Ralph's supermarket circa 2000.

wait, why did i say he was playing a tele there? waht is that guitar?

nicol another "hey i'm doing electric lead now what a weird world i find myself in" during the angel delight years

Yes, and he was good too!

wait, why did i say he was playing a tele there? waht is that guitar?

Don't know what it is but I want one.

1972 Fender Telecaster Deluxe. Belonging to Graham Coxon I would suggest:

https://www.groundguitar.com/graham-coxon-blur-guitars-gear/

ah, there you go - the knobs and the headstock had me confused. kind of guessed he was playing a loaner!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsz10qGyYfI

Awesome. It seems like they were never off the telly, must have had good contacts. Almost didn't recognize Martin Carthy with his Dee Dee Ramone haircut.

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