Steeleye Span is a British folk rock band formed by bassist Ashley Hutchings after he left Fairport Convention in 1969, the original line-up also included duo Tim Hart (guitar, mandolin, vocals) and Maddy Prior (vocals) and husband and wife team Terry Woods (guitar, concertina, mandolin, vocals) and Gay Woods (vocals, bodhran, concertina, autoharp). The current line-up includes Prior, alongside drummer Liam Genockey (who first joined in 1989), multi-instrumentalist Julian Littman (since 2010), violinist Jessie May Smart (since 2014), guitarist Andrew "Spud" Sinclair (since 2015), bassist Roger Carey (since 2017) and second violinist Violeta Vicci (since 2019)
History Steeleye Span began in late 1969, when London-born bass player Ashley Hutchings left Fairport Convention, the band he had co-founded in 1967. Fairport had been involved in a road accident in 1969 in which the drummer, Martin Lamble, and guitarist Richard Thompson's girlfriend, Jeannie Franklyn, were killed and other band members injured. The survivors convalesced in a rented house near Winchester in Hampshire and worked on the album Liege & Lief. Despite the success of the album, Ashley Hutchings and the band's vocalist Sandy Denny left Fairport Convention.
Hutchings' new band was formed after he met established duo Tim Hart and Maddy Prior on the London folk club scene, and the initial line-up was completed by husband and wife team Terry Woods (formerly of Sweeney's Men, later of The Pogues) and Gay Woods. The name Steeleye Span comes from a character in the traditional song "Horkstow Grange." Martin Carthy gave Hart the idea to name the band after the song character. When the band discussed names, they decided to choose among the three suggestions "Middlemarch Wait", "Iyubidin's Wait", and "Steeleye Span". Although there were only five members in the band, six ballots appeared and "Steeleye Span" won. Only in 1978 did Hart confess that he had voted twice. The liner notes for their first album include thanks to Carthy for the name suggestion.
With two female singers, the original line-up was unusual for the time, and indeed, never performed live, as the Woodses departed the band shortly after the release of the group's debut album, Hark! The Village Wait (1970). While recording the album, the five members were all living in the same house, an arrangement that produced considerable tensions particularly between Hart and Prior on the one hand and the Woodses on the other. Terry Woods maintains that the members had agreed that if more than one person departed, the remaining members would select a new name, and he was upset that this did not happen when he and Gay Woods left the band. Gay and Terry were replaced by veteran folk musician Martin Carthy and fiddler Peter Knight in a longer-term line-up that toured small concert venues, recorded a number of BBC Radio Sessions, and recorded two albums – Please to See the King (1971) and Ten Man Mop, or Mr. Reservoir Butler Rides Again (1971). While the first album was traditionally performed – guitars, bass and with two guest drummers – Please to See the King was revolutionary in its hard electric sound and lack of drums.
In 1971, the then Steeleye Span line-up minus Maddy Prior contributed to two songs on Scottish folk musician Ray Fisher's album The Bonny Birdy; Martin Carthy and Ashley Hutchings were also involved in the selection and arrangement of some songs released on this album, whilst Ashley Hutchings wrote the sleeve notes. Furthermore, Martin Carthy and Peter Knight performed on four songs released on Roy Bailey's eponymous debut album in 1971.
Shortly after the release of their third album, the band brought in manager Jo Lustig, who brought a more commercial sound to their recordings. At that time, traditionalists Carthy and Hutchings left the band to pursue purely folk projects. Their replacements were electric guitarist Bob Johnson and bass player Rick Kemp, who brought strong rock and blues influences to the sound. Rick Kemp subsequently married Maddy Prior and they had two children before divorcing. Their daughter Rose Kemp and their son Alex (who performs as Kemp) both followed their parents into the music industry.
Lustig signed them to the Chrysalis record label, for a deal that was to last for ten albums.
With the release of their fourth album, Below the Salt, later in 1972, the revised line-up had settled on a distinctive electrified rock sound, although they continued to play mostly arrangements of very traditional material, including songs dating back a hundred years or more. Even on the more commercial Parcel of Rogues (1973), the band had no permanent drummer but, in 1973, rock drummer Nigel Pegrum, who had previously recorded with Gnidrolog, The Small Faces and an early incarnation of Uriah Heep, joined them, to harden up their sound (as well as occasionally playing flute and oboe). Also that year the single "Gaudete" from Below the Salt became a Christmas hit single, reaching number 14 in the UK Singles Chart.
Their sixth album (and sixth member Pegrum's first with the band) was entitled Now We Are Six. Produced by Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, the album includes the epic track "Thomas the Rhymer", which has been a part of the live set ever since. Although successful, the album is controversial among some fans for the inclusion of nursery rhymes sung by "The St. Eeleye School Choir" (band members singing in the style of children), and the cover of "To Know Him Is to Love Him", featuring a guest appearance from David Bowie on saxophone.
The attempts at humour continued on Commoners Crown (1975), which included Peter Sellers playing electric ukulele on the final track, "New York Girls". Their seventh album also included the epic ballad "Long Lankin" and novelty instrumental "Bach Goes To Limerick". With their star now conspicuously ascendant, the band brought in producer Mike Batt to work on their eighth album, All Around My Hat, and their biggest success came with the release of the title track as a single – it reached number 5 in the UK Singles Chart in late 1975. The single was also released in other European countries and gave them a breakthrough in the Netherlands and Germany.
The follow-up album, Rocket Cottage (1976), also produced by Batt, proved to be a commercial flop, despite having much in common musically with its predecessor. The opening track, "London", was penned by Rick Kemp as a follow-up to "All Around My Hat", in response to a request from the record label that Kemp describes as "we'll have another one of those, please", and released as a single. The song failed to make the UK Chart, in complete contrast to "All Around My Hat", despite having much in common – a time signature, upbeat tempo, solo verses and full harmony chorus. Rocket Cottage also included the experimental track "Fighting for Strangers" (with sparse vocals singing concurrently in a variety of keys) and, on the final track, excerpts of studio banter between the band members and a seemingly impromptu rendition of "Camptown Races", in which Prior gets the lyrics wrong.
At the time of their seventh album, Commoners Crown, the advent of punk saw the mainstream market turning away from folk rock almost overnight, heralding a downturn in commercial fortunes for the band. While they never regained the commercial success of All Around My Hat, Steeleye remained popular among British folk rock fans and generally respected within the music industry. It has been widely reported that Peter Knight and Bob Johnson left the band to work on another project together, The King of Elfland's Daughter.
Their departure left a significant hole in the band. For the 1977 album, Storm Force Ten, early member Martin Carthy rejoined on guitar. When he originally joined the band for their second album, Carthy had tried to persuade the others to bring John Kirkpatrick on board but the band had chosen Knight instead. This time, Carthy's suggestion was accepted and Kirkpatrick's accordion replaced Knight's fiddle, which gave the recording a very different texture from the Steeleye sound of previous years. This line-up also recorded their first album outside of the studio, Live at Last, before a "split" at the end of the decade that proved to be short-lived. Carthy and Kirkpatrick had only intended to play with the band for a few months and had no interest in a longer association.
The band were contractually obliged to record a final album for the Chrysalis label and, with Carthy and Kirkpatrick not wanting to rejoin the re-formed band, the door was open for Knight and Johnson to return, in 1980. The album Sails of Silver saw the band moving away from traditional material to a greater focus on self-penned songs, many with historical or pseudo-folk themes. Sails was not a commercial success, in part because Chrysalis chose not to promote the album aggressively but also because many fans felt uncomfortable with the band's new direction in its choice of material. The failure of the album left Hart unhappy enough that he decided to leave the band. He later gave up commercial music entirely, in favour of a reclusive life in the Canary Islands.
After Sails of Silver there were to be no new albums for several years, and Steeleye became a part-time touring band. The other members spent much of their time and energy working on their various other projects and the band went into a fitful hibernation. "Sails of Silver" was used as a theme song for the science fiction literary show "Hour of The Wolf", on NYC radio station WBAI 99.5FM since the 1980s. This introduced many younger US listeners to the band. After a quiet spell, the group's 12th studio album (and first without Tim Hart) Back in Line was released on the Flutterby label in 1986. With no "relaunch" as such, the band retained a low profile.
In 1989, two long-term members departed. One was bassist Rick Kemp, who needed to recover from a serious shoulder injury, exacerbated by playing bass on stage. His eventual replacement (after two tours, each with a different bassist) was Tim Harries, who was brought in less than two weeks before the band was scheduled to start a tour. A friend of Pegrum's, Harries was a self-taught rock bassist, as well as a classically trained pianist and double bassist. With Harries on board, Steeleye released Tempted and Tried (1989), an album that formed the basis for their live set for many years to come.
Not long after recording Tempted, drummer Nigel Pegrum emigrated to Australia for personal relationship reasons. He was replaced by eccentric drummer Liam Genockey (most recently of rock band Gillan), easily identified by his long, plaited beard. He and Knight were simultaneously members of "Moiré Music", a free-jazz band with a classical flavour, led by Trevor Watts.
In 1995 almost all the past and present members of the band reunited for a concert to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the band (which was later released as The Journey). The only former members not present were founding members Terry Woods, Mark Williamson, and Chris Staines.
A by-product of this gig was founding vocalist Gay Woods rejoining the band full-time, partly because Prior was experiencing vocal problems and, for a while, Steeleye toured with two female singers and released the album Time 1996, their first new studio album in seven years.