"And away you santy, my dear honey,
O you New York girls, can't you dance the polka?"
British folk rock at it's best. These are the two albums I still have, but back in the day I had more. The one previous to 'Commoners Crown' was 'Now We Are Six' which was famous for some right and a couple of wrong reasons. The right reasons were the excellent interpretations of traditional folk music, particularly 'Thomas the Rhymer' which was released as a single. Not so well received were the title track, which was basically a set of riddles with a piano accompaniment, 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', which is just what it says on the tin and then the last track, the Phil Spector classic 'To Know Him Is To Love Him'.
People were upset that the album included a rock 'n' roll track when they expected Steeleye Span to be doing 'folk rock' and not modern rock. The thing was, in their stage act at the time their encore usually consisted of doing things like 'Da Doo Ron Ron' and 'Long Tall Sally'.
One bit of trivia - on the said track 'To Know Him is to Love Him', none other than David Bowie plays the sax !! The album was also partly produced by Jethro Tull's frontman Ian Anderson.
They are not the only guests to make an impact. Coming back to one of the featured albums 'Commoners Crown' there's a great performance on the last track 'New York Girls' by the legendary Peter Sellers. The band needed someone to play a ukulele and although none of them knew him, they decided to ask Peter Sellers to do it. Not only does he play, but he also does vocals. But wait, there's more. Not only does he do vocals, he does them in the voices of two of his famous 'Goons' characters, Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister. Pure magic. The rest of the album is full of great traditional songs - 'Long Lankin', Dogs and Ferrets', 'Galtee Farmer' .. each one a masterpiece of old and new to produce a revival of long lost songs brought to the modern ear.
Like many groups, Steeleye Span went through a lot of line-up changes but this period was probably their 'golden age' with Maddy Prior, Tim Hart, Bob Johnson, Rick Kemp, Peter Knight and Nigel Pegrum. Martin Carthy came and went but it's easier to catch his work on some of their compilations.
The album after 'Commoners Crown' was 'All Around My Hat' which produced their best know and most popular single, the title track. It's a thumping, belting, sing-along joyous song about a very sad topic, but no-one seems to care.
'Original Masters' is a two-record collection of tracks with some great examples of their work - 'Sir James the Rose', 'Long Lankin' and 'Black Jack Davey' among them.
If you're new to Steeleye Span, dip your toe in with the links below. If you knew them back in the day, sing along.
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