One of the interesting aspects of all musical
bands is that each member seems to be in a different outfit remembering and experiencing
the events of its career in a completely different way. Bands may talk to each other a lot
but that's not necessarily the same as communicating. Consequently whichever member you
speak to, theirs is the version of events that you get. We may surmise and guess at each
others motivations but I'm always amazed at how wide of the mark it is possible to be.
Therefore this is only my view of the musical and other activities of a group of musicians
who came to call themselves Steeleye Span.
Traditional music in England experienced a huge revival in the 1950's and 60's with
folk clubs springing up in smoky back rooms of pubs all over the country. They were run
largely on a amateur basis by enthusiastic young people whose tastes enveloped a large
variety of material. There was great interest in the blues guitar players such as Blind
Gary Davies and Josh White, both of whom toured the clubs in the 60's. Also bluegrass and
country music. Bill Monroe, Frank Proffit and Hedy West also toured. Alongside the
Americans was the growing interest in our own British culture. Ironically it was the
American Joan Baez who initially introduced a large number of English people to their own
forgotten music with a series of albums she recorded for Vanguard. Also the clubs were
allowing performers to travel by way of their network. Consequently people even more
alien, for instance from the North East, were able to play in clubs in the home counties.
Television at that time was still dominated by the 'Oxford' accent and although Coronation
Street and Z Cars introduced us to the North, regional accents were still a rarity and so
in the South a North Easterner was almost incomprehensible. Through the clubs young people
became familiar with the British tradition itself. Bob Davenport and Lou Killen from the
North East, Harry Boardman and Mike Harding from Lancashire, the Songwainers and Cyril
Towney from the West country, the Watersons from Yorkshire. All distinctive traditions
that Tim Hart and myself experienced as a background to our musical development as we
worked these clubs.
At the same time American popular music was embracing its own version of folk music
with Bob Dylan and The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Phil Ochs. These bands were
influencing another group of musicians in North London not far from where we lived. They
were a group called Fairport Convention who were beginning to enjoy a level of success.
In the summer of 1969 there was a folk festival at Loughborough University and all the
late night conversation among the musicians seemed to hover around the area of setting
traditional music to electric accompaniment. Meanwhile during the day we sat enraptured by
older singers like Davy Stewart, Jeannie Robertson and Fred Jordan. Singers born into the
tradition, unlike us to whom it had come as a revelation. Our enthusiasm for it urged us
to believe it deserved a wider audience.
1969 was the year of Woodstock in America. In England Liege And Lief set the ball
rolling for all these energies to combine. This was an album of traditional ballads sung
by one of the most supple and emotive voices in Britain. Sandy Denny fronting Fairport
inspired and infuriated us all. Driven by Ashley Hutchings discovery of the potency of the
material and sustained by Richard Thompson's distinctive guitar they had founded a corner
stone on which a movement came to be built.
It became apparent that members of Fairport considered this to be a one off album and
didn't wish to limit themselves to this material.
Ashley in his passion for the music looked around for like minded musicians to continue
with him what he'd begun. Terry and Gay Woods were an Irish couple. Terry had worked with
Sweeneys Men, with Andy Irvine and Johnny Moynihan (later to play in the seminal band
Planxty with Christy Moore and piper Liam O'Flynn). They were staying in the house Tim and
I lived in in North London so we were aware of the suggestions in the air. Eventually,
much to our surprise, as I remember, we were asked to join Ashley, Terry and Gay. We
agreed to a rehearsal at Tyger's house (as Ashley was then known due to his aggressive
behaviour on the football field. ``I spelt it with a `y' because I thought it was arty!!''
he later reflected). The rehearsal went well and it was decided to pursue the idea. RCA
provided money for the equipment and Sandy Roberton was declared manager. We were off!
In those days the thing to do was ``get it together in the country''. So we duly hired
a friend's house in Wiltshire and move in for three months. I have to say this is not the
way to get to know people. Living cheek by jowl with complete strangers in the middle of
nowhere is no guarantee of continued friendship. Despite the inevitable strains of two
couples an a referee the music was surprisingly satisfying. There was room for lots of
harmony and Gay and I enjoyed singing together while crocheting and embroidering, looking
for all the world like two medieval ladies sewing silken seams. She taught me some Irish
step and I taught her some clog dancing. We went into Sound Techniques Studio in Chelsea
with Sandy as producer. It had been decided at some point that we would use drums on the
album so Gerry Conway and Dave Mattacks shared the honours. It was the first time Tim and
I had worked in a 'proper studio'. We had made two duo albums Folk Songs Of Olde England
Vol. 1 & 2 but these had been recorded on a four track machine and took as long to
make as they take to play. Well, almost.
The first album was Hark! The Village Wait (a wait is a medieval town band). The tracks
taken from that album are The Blacksmith and My Johnny Was A Shoemaker, that is an
accappella (unaccompanied as the English so depreciatingly call it) track of Gay and
myself. The material on that album is particular attractive, encompassing English and
Irish songs, but unfortunately it never was to be performed live. The strains of the
rehearsal time spilt over into the recording situation and we parted on fighting terms at
the end of the sessions. Everyone was very disappointed and there was pressure obviously
from those outside the band who had invested time and money into the project. Then Tim
came up with a stunning suggestion: ``Why not ask Martin Carthy to join?''
Martin was the young singer of traditional songs. He was established even then as a
master. We knew him well as a friend and in fact he had suggested the name Steeleye Span
to Tim late one evening while staying at Tim's family home, The Vicarage in St. Albans.
The name comes from a Lincolnshire ballad called Harkstow Grange and is a story of an
argument between John Bowlin and Jon Span, whose nickname was Steeleye.
Terry and Gay had disappeared, I think back to Ireland, and when Martin agreed to join
it was decided that the band should compose the four of us, Martin, Ashley, Tim and
myself. While rehearsing in the aforementioned vicarage we realized that we needed another
instrumentalist. It was decided it should be a fiddle player. Martin had previously been
working with Dave Swarbrick who had played on Liege And Lief and been seduced into
Fairport. We had all independently heard Peter Knight play and decided to give him a try.
He had worked round the clubs with Bob Johnson, a guitarist and singer, but also had a
classical background which had been subsequently overlaid with a strong Irish influence.
He had worked hard at the music and become known in all the Irish music pubs in London.
Maybe it was the classical background that gave his playing the richness of tone and the
Irish his fluidity, but for whatever reasons he suited us very well.
The band finally managed to play live. We played mainly in universities and colleges.
Amplification was pretty primitive then. We had 400 watts of WEM PA which would have been
adequate for the voices except that all the instruments including the fiddle were going
through huge dual-showman Fender amps. Those who understand these things will realize that
there is an imbalance here for a band that was essentially song and singing based. Monitor
systems were unknown so it is hard to imagine what it really sounded like. But all bands
were in the same boat so we accepted the situation and were mildly scornful of audiences
that said they couldn't hear the words. We were always a loud band. Coming from totally
acoustic and unamplified situations it was wonderful to make so much noise. And we didn't
even have drums.
Full harmony was our speciality and Martin began introducing guitar riffs that
reflected the use of the regulators on Irish pipes. We were strongly influenced at this
time by Irish music. Paddy Tunney, Sarah Maken and Mary Doran are examples of traditional
singers that had been recorded by Peter Kennedy for the BBC and copies of these were
available in the listening room of the headquarters of the English Folk Song & Dance
Society in Regent's Park. I spent many hours in there absorbing their styles and finding
more songs in the library.
It was a challenging and experimental time. The glory of English and Irish music was
there for us to play with and we enjoyed ourselves.
One day we approached to perform in a play at the Royal Court in Sloane Square. We
hadn't done any acting before but we were assured it would be OK. We had been briefly
involved in the music for a previous play called Pirates but Corunna was the start of a
drama/music combination that would run and run. Ourselves plus fine actors (Brian Glover,
Marc McManus, Jack Shepherd, Dave Hill and Juliet Ackroyd) were to enact the British
army's retreat at Corunna in Spain under Wellington. The show was written by Keith
Dewhurst and directed by Bill Bryden. We not only did a run at the Royal Court but toured
it around the colleges, restaging its complexity every night since it was an early
promenade performance that had no precenium arch and involved acting among the audience.
The material from the show appeared on both Please To See The King and the next album Ten
Man Mop Or Mr Reservoir Butler Rides Again! Here we include Marrowbones where Martin sings
with relish this story of marital strife.
From a situation that seemed to me going along in a very jolly fashion, out of the
blue, Ashley declared he was leaving. Martin decided to go also and return to solo
performing. I admit I was perplexed. But I'm not known for my perception in these matters
and there undoubtedly were strains building up. Talk of touring America was uncomfortable
for Ashley. He didn't want to fly, but I suspect the project had run its course for him.
We had reached another junction. The band had a strong cult following and Peter, Tim
and I were interested in continuing. We co-opted Bob Johnson, Peter's erstwhile partner,
and a bass player was suggested to us that had done lots of session works in Sound
Techniques. That was Rick Kemp. He joined under the illusion that Martin was still in the
band and only discovered he'd left on the first rehearsal.
It was a lucky choice. Although Bob had worked in the clubs and knew traditional
music he had a background of rock & roll. He'd worked with Gary Glitter when he was
Paul Raven. Rick had also worked in many different areas of music, starting by having won
the England Skiffle Competition at the Cafe de Paris in London at the age of 12, and
continuing through a career working with local bands in Hull, guitarist Mike Chapman and
the varied session work in London, Rick and Bob developed the riffs and brought a punchier
sound to the whole endeavour. Their rock backgrounds made it a true fusion of styles.
Bob brought with him also a particular interest in the big ballads. He was drawn to the
ancient and vivid texts that Frances James Child had collected and over the years he's
presented us with some of the most challenging and satisfying material. King Henry was the
first of many. He also brought in Gaudete, an accappella Latin chant that was destined to
be our first chart success.
With this new line up we got new management (Jo Lustig) and a new record company,
Chrysalis. We were the first band they signed that they didn't manage. They were a small
but potent company and we signed a deal for ten albums in five years (an album every six
months). Looking back I can see how ridiculous that was. Also it shows how quickly we
recorded them, three weeks per album. It is not unusual for bands to spend six months or
more now, but this put pressure on us to provide material at a rate that would be
unthinkable today. Luckily the tradition is large and we were already familiar with a lot
of it, so songs were there.
John Barleycorn is a type of riddle song about the making of beer, which perplexed me
as a child, and is sung here by Tim. He wrote some poetic and perceptive sleeve notes for
the album Below The Salt.
Our stage shows were always exciting and energetic and with the new line up plus the
influence of the general flamboyance of the 70s, we moved towards more dramatic
presentation. We were let loose.
One facet of the show, which developed early, was the ``encore''. We felt that the show
was the show and we liked to do something completely different at the end. Rave On sung
accappella we'd done with Martin and we continued this tradition with much costume changes
and putting on wigs to perform Rock And Roll Encores. This aspect of our lives we
considered for stage only but later they crept on to vinyl, but the joke element was
missing and they tended to confuse those not familiar with our stage approach.
At this time we were again recruited by the theatrical division. They were staging a
version of Kidnapped, the Robert Louis Stevenson book set in The Jacobite troubles. The
Jacobite repertoire contains some of the strongest and most moving material in Britain. It
has an attack unknown in the South. We went to Scotland, to the Lyceum at Edinburgh, and
joined up with Keith and Bill again to fuse theatre and tradition once more. Out of that
production we acquired the material for Parcel Of Rogues. This title is taken from a
scathing ballad written by Burns about the vagaries of politicians and vested interest.
Cam Ye O'er Frae France was a bitter song about the loss of the Scottish identity under
English rule. They are songs that speak for all time on the plight of the oppressed, but
they speak with indomitable spirit.
Bill and Keith plus Ashley went on to continue this line of work at the Cottesloe
Theatre on the South Bank with Lark Rise, The World Turned Upside Down and The Mysteries,
where the actors developed the style of promenade that has become so popular.
Parcel of Rogues saw the use of drums reappear. Rick was frustrated by being solely
responsible for holding the rhythm together. He was used to drums. I'd never worked with
them so I couldn't see the problem. It would be a bold move for us, but songs like Alison
Gross were starting to demand a stronger approach. The tempestuous Robbery With Violins, a
duet with Peter and Rick really going for it, seemed to set the seal. We were set to tour
America with Jethro Tull where we were to play huge stadiums. We decided on a drummer.
Nigel Pegrum was not only a solid drummer but also a flute player. This combination was
perfect. He was patient and hardworking taking on the demanding job of making sense of all
the different points of view thrown at him. We wanted the music supported, not pinned
down. A hard task. And like all experiments some worked better than others. I remember a
reggae Spotted Cow seemed outrageous then, but now would be quite acceptable.
Touring America to any English band must be a revelation. Americans are spontaneous and
make great audiences. They freed us from more constraints. It has been a long road losing
those English inhibitions. Five nights at the LA forum with Jethro Tull, 18,000 seats. We
were opening our set with the Lyke Wake Dirge, a grim piece of music from Yorkshire
concerning purgatory and we all dressed in dramatic mummers ribbons with tall hats. The
effect was stunning. Five gaunt figures in line across the front of the stage, lit from
below casting huge shadows, intoning this insistent dirge alarmed some members of the
audience whose reality was already tampered with by 70s substances. It was most
satisfying.
After the tour with Jethro we recorded appropriately Now We Are Six. Ian Anderson came
in as `production consultant' and it was recorded at Morgan Studios with Robin Black as
engineer. Thomas The Rhymer was the ballad Bob brought in. A mythical story of fairies and
other world journeys.
To Know Him Is To Love Him was another track and was given added vigour by inclusion of
David Bowie on saxophone. Rick had known David and Mick Ronson in Hull and asked through a
friend if he would come and play. He duly obliged and we passed an interesting afternoon
watching David and Ian gently sparring.
In 1975 we recorded Commoners Crown. Its cover was a delicate and detailed sculpture of
human models making up a crown. Robin Black produced it along with the band. Long Lankin
is the classic from this album. A ballad enunciating the perils of exclusion. People
pushed to the outer edges and disenfranchised will respond with violence. It is a lesson
that has never been learnt.
While sitting over lunch we were discussing what we need to sparkle up the track New
York Girls. Ukelele would be good someone said. Anyone got one? Anybody know someone who
can play one? Peter Sellers plays it says Bob. Pause. Eyes meet, why not? We could ask. He
could only say no. So we spent another interesting afternoon with a rather diffident Peter
Sellers. I don't think he'd ever been asked to play on a session before and was
apprehensive about the whole affair until he realised we were delighted to have him there.
He loosened up as time went by and finally finished by adding, unprompted, some 'goon'
voices. We were ecstatic.
The album All Around My Hat was the peak of our commercial success. Tim had had one of
his brilliant ideas and suggested Mike Batt as producer. We laughed because we had only
seen the Wombles, a children's story about creatures who collected litter on Wimbledon
Common, as a novelty item. Tim had bought the albums and realised the great talent and
creativity that had gone in their making. Beautiful melodies, light and humorous lyrics
and sound arrangements all done by Mike Batt. He was perfect. He gave us our heads and
watched perplexed as we did our Steeleye thing. He recorded it all impeccably then added a
small amount of arrangement where appropriate, so tasteful. Black Jack Davy is an old song
of the power of lust, and Hard Times Of Old England seemed an appropriate song for what
was the beginning of the long recession.
The album sleeve was designed by a school friend of Tims, John O'Connor, and he was
working on anamorphic projection which was used since the 17th Century. It was a style
used for salacious and seditious material for example in the case of for Bonnie Prince
Charlie where they devised a way of drawing a picture round 360 degrees or distorting a
picture so that it didn't look like one, but when you stood a bottle of claret on it
Prince Charlie appeared in the bottle. Somehow the idea seemed to go awry when applied to
our sleeve and the result was rather odd caricatures. A nice idea at the time.
The single All Around My Hat took us into the charts and onto Top Of The Pops again. We
had previously appeared carrying candles rather limply for Gaudete. This time everyone was
dancing. It was a crazy time and I remember laughing a great deal. A time of hysteria.
Rocket Cottage was again produced by Mike and Fighting For Strangers, a track put
together by him, is to my mind way ahead of time. A moving mood piece with unusual
juxtaposition of melodies and keys. London is a nineteenth Century broadside of wigs and
dandys set to music by Rick. This album did not achieve the same popularity as All Around
My Hat.
The famous bands of the time were starting to put on massive shows with lighting rigs
and sophisticated PA systems, they had a polished and expensive style and young people
increasingly with less money and less places to play `live' to learn their trade,
responded as people have always done when faced with a frustrating and unsolvable dilemma.
They moved the goal posts. Suddenly long glossy hair, tanned svelt torsos and flashy
guitar technique were rejected. The shaved head, safety pins and workman boots established
themselves as new reference points. Punk was here.
Steeleye was only ever marginally affected by wider trends. We have always tended to
plough our own furrow with our own indefinable and unspoken laws.
Maybe it was these other pressures, but more likely the hectic
touring/recording/rehearsing schedule that finally took its toll. Exhaustion and towering
egos are a bad combination. Our desire for variety, though Lord knows we'd had plenty,
spurred a dispute that ended with Bob and Pete leaving the band to work in a project dear
to their hearts, that of the King Of Elfland's Daughter which was finally made and
incorporated the talents of Mary Hopkin, Frankie Miller, Chris Farlowe and even Hammer
Horror star Christopher Lee. I had recorded Silly Sisters with the June Tabor and was
starting work on a solo project. Rick, Tim and Nigel all had outside music business
interest. There was of course work still outstanding to be done and we were assured by the
management that it would be bad news to cancel. We debated and Tim again leapt into the
breach by suggesting Martin, again he comes into the band on a regular basis, but doesn't
take his coat off. This time he brought the lovable and talented John Kirkpatrick with him
and for the next 18 months and two albums Storm Force Ten and Live At Last! we had a
completely different sound. A song I had loved for years and Martin encouraged me to sing
was Berthold Brecht's The Black Freighter, a stark gritty song of anticipated revenge.
Rick again supplied us with The Victory, a lyric about Lord Nelson that he put to music
and features the harmonics that were so strong in that line up.
The live album was recorded on our `farewell tour'. Every band should do a farewell
tour preferably like us in mid-career. It was wonderful. We took 15 minutes of Montrose,
written by Rick about one of his favourite Scottish characters on the road and in this
collection we have the driving The False Knight On The Road, with Martin singing, about a
little boy who meets the devil on the road.
After all the hooha of us splitting up, there occurred the phenomena that has become so
familiar. Having had a year or so apart, suddenly the reasons we couldn't stand each other
had faded away and the reasons we had worked together through so much re-established
themselves.
Chrysalis asked us to record another album and when we got together we decided it would
be fun to tour. I went through the recording process pregnant with my first child. Sails
Of Silver was produced by Gus Dudgeon who has worked so well with Elton John. His input
was greater than any previous producer and this gives a more accessible album in may ways.
Peter wrote two particular beautiful songs at this time, Let Her Go Down and Gone To
America and Tim wrote Sails Of Silver and My Love, but the band didn't settle so easily.
Tim left in 1982 and it was some years before we recorded Back In Line. But here is a
track that was taped live onto cassette at Nottingham Theatre Royal during the miners
strike and as song that has been an interesting historical set piece suddenly became a
passionate and powerful cry, driven by Rick's bass and Nigel's drums. Lady Diamond was
another of Bob's gory ballads of class, love and cruelty.
Another change when Rick left. It took three tries to replace him (he is my husband),
one tour with Mark Williamson, one with Chris Stains and we finally settled on Tim
Harries, a player of great flexibility and knowledge who had worked in Bill Brufords Earth
Works amongst others.
Tempted And Tried came in 1989 and here are two of Peter's songs, The Fox about a town
fox and Following Me about late night feelings of threat on the streets. This album was
produced by Peter, Bob and John Etchells the engineer.
But all was still not well and Nigel too departed and his place was taken by Liam
Genockey of Gillan, Paul Brady, Moire Music etc.
With this line up now steady for four years the band seems now again to have found its
energy. During the 80's our lives were full of distractions and confusions. Peter spent
time on his instrument and became involved in improvisation and matured considerably in
his playing. But it was a long road. Bob became involved in opening a restaurant and went
to university and obtained a degree in Psychology. Nigel had run a studio, Rick and I had
toured with our own band, recorded four albums and were raising a family.
As we moved into the 90's we rediscovered the music that had brought us together in the
first place and we were able to approach it with a maturity and confidence that had been
absent for a while. Liam and Tim brought fresh enthusiasm and reminded us of the enjoyment
this music gives us all.
The two last tracks are taken from the latest album which was recorded `live'. The
colossal ballad of Tam Lin, again courtesy of Bob, is a story of sex, commitment and loss
and the cracking piece of earthly traditional custom from Cornwall, Padstow, from the May
festivities of the fishing village of that name.
Steeleye has always had energy and love of the music it plays. As Tim Hart said `these
songs have a longevity that defies logic - there's no reason why they should have lasted
all these years, but they have and they have beautiful melodies and although the lyrics
are about strange things they have a flow to them and feel that people identify with.'
It has been a wonderful experience being in Steeleye Span all these years, through the
ups and the downs and I'm pleased to say it looks set for sometime to come, as far as any
of us can ever know ...
Maddy Prior with John Tobler and Lynda Morrison
|
Steeleye
Span 
side from
Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span were the most successful and enduring British folk-rock
band. The parallels between the band are numerous: both updated traditional British folk
material with rock arrangements, both featured an excellent female lead singer (Sandy
Denny for Fairport, Maddy Prior for Steeleye Span), both frequently employed multi-part
harmonies, and both mixed original and traditional songs. Although Fairport were more
innovative in their early days, Steeleye Span were arguably the more interesting band
after 1970, when personnel changes had gutted the original Fairport lineup. Steeleye Span,
too, would undergo numerous personnel changes even at their peak. Prior was the constant
factor that gave the group something of a recognizable identity at all phases of their
journey. 