Steeleye Span Archive Pages

HATS OFF FOR STEELEYE...

By Rosalind Russell

© Record Mirror & Disc

29 Nov 1975

Its coming up for Christmas and Steeleye Span look all set to remain comfortably in the charts with All Around My Hat. It's not a particularly seasonal number, but there's something about Steeleye that brings home all that is traditionally British.


As the Christmas season is the most traditional occasion of the year in this country, it seems fitting that we should go for music that reflects the event. If you remember, Steeleye did well the Christmas before last with Gaudete. It seemed to be a most unlikely hit single, but it caught the nation's imagination at just the right time.

Everyone recognised the band to be in the slightly unfashionable field of folk music (some still do, although Steeleye have progressed out of that into a much wider strata of music).

“It was strange that Gaudete should do well,” said Maddy Prior. "And of course it put us further out on the limb we were already sitting on! "At least with ‘All Around My Hat’ you can dance to it.”

If there ever was any stigma attached to being a folk-rock band, it has been lost long ago. Steeleye have just finished a sell-out nationwide tour, having snuck up into the top league of British rock without anyone really noticing it.

"Our audiences have suddenly changed,” said Maddy. "They have become younger, which is odd." Perhaps because Steeleye are breaking more into the singles market? "Yes, it could be that it may also be because we covered a lot of places that we did in the summer, at outdoor concerts - like Cardiff.”

Steeleye are soon off to the Continent to continue touring - and to confound the Germans. "The Germans like to put music into categories but they can't decide which one we belong in. "I think now we are more obviously rock, although the songs are in fact more traditional, if anything.

"As for All Around My Hat - oh I'm dreadful at sources - it's a mixture of two different songs."

Did Maddy think that Steeleye had in fact converted great numbers to folk music? “No, you can’t convert people to folk music. ”There is a lot of beautiful stuff in folk and a lot of rotten stuff, the same as any other type of music. We are attracting an audience that likes the band as opposed to people who are interested in the cultural thing.”

Steeleye passed through their cultural stage a few years ago, when band policy was considerably different, The presence of confirmed folk artists like Martin Carthy and Tyger Hutchings gave the band a weightier image.

Steeleye's latest album, however, ‘All Around My Hat‘, is something else again. It was produced by Womble wizard Mike Batt. At first glance, you wouldn't notice much in common between Steeleye and the Wombles, but the band saw in Mike Batt a clever producer with a steady eye for the market. "Mike is very energetic. He never stops," said Maddy. "A while ago Tim (Hart) asked me if I'd heard the Wombles; I looked at him blankly. "When he asked me to listen to them, I looked at him even more blankly. Like everyone else, I thought of them as primarily a children's thing.

"I was really amazed when I heard the high class of work that went into the production of the songs. So when it came time to look for a producer for our new album, we thought of Mike. It was a surprise to some people. But it's nice to give them a surprise now and again."

Particularly good for Steeleye, I imagine, because people come to them so often with preconceived ideas, They have been held under the folk / rock umbrella for longer than was good for them. Now that they've broken free, they have started to plan on an even bigger scale.


Maddy and Tim, who had already worked together for some years, had an album out a while ago called ‘Summer Solstice‘. Were they thinking of trying to repeat that idea? "I don't think we will. I have done an album with a singer called June Tabor, which should be out in February. It's all traditional acoustic material, June and I have been singing together for a couple of years and suddenly thought we'd like to do an album. We have all sorts of people on it, like Tony Hall and Martin Carthy.”

“The band are all into extra - mural activities, It's good to work with other people for a while, it helps you get things back in perspective. "Pete (Knight) and Bob (Johnson) have a project on at the moment. Tim has written some poetry and is hoping to get it published.”
All of this shows that Steeleye are looking further ahead than the end of their crumhorn (whatever that is). In fact they are looking to the States where they have already had a sizeable success. They have the advantage there of being free of any previous image.

“The American audiences don't have any prejudices," said Maddy. "The last time we went we were doing the Mummers Play in the set, They must have thought we were pretty weird, but they didn't come with any preconceived ideas. But they did think we had something to do with the Klu Klux Klan when they saw the costumes!”

Steeleye have been relatively experimental in their stage shows - at one time they toured with a play, Kidnapped, and did a week at the Royal Court in a musical play called Corunna.

What has been noticeable over the past two years especially is their personal change in attitude. Is it my imagination, or has Maddy Prior really looked much prettier recently? And Tim Hart, although always a young man of fashion, has become even mare dashing in stage dress. All this sprucing up has undoubtedly helped the band steer away from the more informal image of folk music to the well-heeled presentation of professional entertainment.

A radical change in management has furthered this swing towards a smoother outlook. They have combined their medieval songs with modern arrangements with ever increasing skill.

When Bob Johnson and Rick Kemp joined the band three years ago, they were worried that fans might see their presence as a prelude to a watering down of the Steeleye style, It has done just the opposite. With drummer Nigel Pegrum, they add a depth and body to the music that it never had before. Certainly the band is enjoying a healthy success at the moment.

"Maybe it's because it's English music. At Christmas, everybody thinks of being at home and harks back to childhood things, I just hope we don't have to wait until Christmas every year to have a hit single, We'll have to try to find something that will sell in the Summer - like the Beach Boys sound!"

© Record Mirror & Disc