[Cherry Tree, 2019]
Hark! The Village Wait
As John Cleese has famously said, “and now for something completely different …”
THE OVERVIEW
I’m more of a dedicated Punk/New Wave/Ska type fan when it comes to rock music, but thanks to good exposure to other forms of music and music analysis, there are other genres of music I also appreciate. One of the oddest (to most people) is my fancy for groups that seek to emulate and put their own spin on other styles once popular in centuries past. Peter Schickele in his persona as PDQ Bach and others who poked fun at oh-so-serious classical, Chuck Jones and his operatic Bugs Buggy films, and for reasons I can’t quite articulate, folk music bands who explored traditional tunes, styles, and instruments.
Two prominent examples of the latter sub-genre I have actively enjoyed and collected include the traditionalist Amazing Blondel, and the more modernist Steeleye Span.
There’s a lot of backstory behind the formation of Steeleye Span, and it is nicely summarised in the accompanying booklet to this collection of their first three albums, completed over the course of just two years, 1970 and 1971.
If you’re not familiar with the band, you’re probably not reading this, but on the off chance someone wants to know more before diving in, Steeleye Span were and are a group that added electric guitar and bass, along and contemporary rock-style drumming to otherwise mostly-traditional songs as pastiches of traditional songs of English folk music, arranged for contemporary (70s) instruments including the banjo, but largely sung in traditional stylings.
Apart from this novel approach, they were also known for periodically having two female vocalists in the band (Maddy Prior and Gay Woods), something of a rarity at the time. A form of the group carries on touring to this day, with only Maddy Prior from the original grouping still involved.
THE ALBUM
Unlike the previous box sets I’ve recently reviewed, two of the three discs in this CD-sized set contain just the straight album with no bonus tracks. A handful of previously-unreleased material exists on the third disc, but we’ll discuss those when we get to that album.
This one was their 1970 debut, Hark! The Village Wait, a title I’ve pondered the meaning of for decades until now. It turns out that a “wait” in Ye Olde Englishe is a group of musicians, usually woodwind players, who would play in the village commons in Tudor times, especially around Christmas.
Most, but not all of the songs are traditionals, with the arrangements by the band themselves. The tone is set on the very first song, even though it’s the only a cappella track on this record. The lyrics for “A Calling-On Song” were written by founder Ashley Hutchings (formerly of Fairport Convention), based on a captain’s song of the Earsdon Sword Dance Team.
From the first notes, you know you are being transported back to the roots of English folk music with a song that acts as an invitation and calling-card to the rest of the album. It would in no way be out-of-place at a Renaissance Fair or SCA gathering. The two women and their respective partners, Tim Hart and Terry Woods’ voices blend well.
Traditional acapella songs of a similar nature were often used to attract an audience to a village-green performance, and the lyrics reflect this: I’ve included the first and last verse here:
Good people, pray heed our petition,
Your attention we beg and we crave.
And if you are inclined for to listen
An abundance of pastime we’ll have.
There’s one thing more needing mention:
The dances we’ve danced all in fun.
So now that you’ve heard our intention,
We’ll play on to the beat of the drum.
And that last verse leads directly into the drum into of track 2, “The Blacksmith,” a traditional song that brings in the musical instruments of guitar, bass, mandola, harmonium, and lovely singing from Maddy Prior. It’s a tale of a love betrayed, of course, but with a bit of a twist. Backing vocals from Gay Woods and choruses with Tim Hart and Terry Woods really take you back in time as much as the first song did, but with enough modern sounds (blended with lesser-heard instruments) to keep the hippies listening.
The next cut, “Fisherman’s Wife,” is as Scottish a traditional as ‘ere we’ll get, with lyrics written by the great Ewan MacColl (father of Kristy) in 1959, and sung by Gay Woods this time. An autoharp and 5-string banjo “enter the chat,” as the kids say these days, atop the electric bass and guitar and drums.
It’s about the hardship of life for a fisherman’s wife, but with a hint of pride in herself and her hardworking husband. The variety of the two female vocalist adds a great tonal quality to the singing. But speaking of variety …
“The Blackleg Miner” gives us a styled nasal and northern voice of Tim Hart on lead vocal. His performance here is tuneful, but absolutely not in harmony with modern rock vocal stylings, and indeed his career-long musical interest lay with old folk songs. Despite his voice being a bit of a jarring break from the previous women-led tracks, his acapella singing really captures the old-timey feel of a song about a scab “blackleg” coal miner. It was strangely relevant in the face of the UK miner strikes going on around that time.
With the next track, we’re back to the ladies, with Gay on lead, singing a beautiful traditional, “Dark-Eyed Sailor.” On my first hearing many years ago I was captivated by this story-song of the pains of loving a sailor who may or may not ever return from the sea, and years later the dusky-voiced June Tabor (who once formed a group with Prior) did a more rockin’ version of the song, and I fell in love with it once again.
And not just me: the song was one of the standout tracks off this album, and though there were no singles from the record that I know of, it became a popular part of the repertoire as the band played live. It became more popular once this album finally made its way to the US, five years after its initial release.
Terry Woods also plays the concertina with Hart on electric dulcimer, and the instrumentation just couldn’t be more perfect for this type of folk ballad. It’s a marvel how this weird mix of old and newer instruments somehow makes for such a distinct and original sound.
Side one of the original vinyl closes with “Copshawholme Fair,” with Prior on lead vocals, and includes some mandolin and the sound of the bodhrán (an Irish frame drum), along with some recorded sounds of step dancing by Maddy and Gay, giving the song a even older and more acoustic feel.
Side two opens with a twist: Maddy and Gay singing an original short sea-based ballad of a couple separated by enforced service by one’s “true love” in the Navy, “All Things Are Quite Silent,” which lends its name to the boxset. Songs of sailors separated from their true loves are, as one quickly learns, a really common theme of these traditional songs, so Ashley, Terry, and Tim knocked one of their own up.
This is followed by “The Hills of Greenmore,” featuring Tim Woods on vocals, which is pleasant but unremarkable. The next track, “The Lowlands of Holland,” is a quintessential staple of the band’s repertoire, starting with some guitar noodling before getting into yet another naval press gang tale of separated lovers, this time from Scotland.
What distinguishes this one from the others is Gay Woods’ beautiful vocal, a wistfully beautiful melody, and a splendid arrangement that really works with this “rock style added to traditional songs” angle the band has adopted. Like “The Blacksmith” and “Dark Eyed Sailor,” this one easily rises above its roots and is given new life in this treatment, in part thanks to the addition of traditional fiddle.
Gay in particular sells the lyric of a heartbroken widow telling her daughter she will someday find a man, but “alas there’s none for me/I never had a love but one/and he’s drowned in the sea.”
This takes us to “Twa Corbies” (a Scottish variation on the English folk song “The Three Ravens”), a rare one where Hart joins Gay and Maddie for a nice change of sound. This English folk ballad from approximately 1611, or possibly earlier, takes a delightfully dark turn as the song is an imagined conversation between two ravens about where and what they will eat.
In the Scottish version, the ravens chance upon a newly-slain knight, and talk in detail about how they will make a meal of him, using his hair to feather their nests, and how his mistress has already taken another lover. This is the version the band have chosen here.
Other versions have softened the lyric, having the ravens be unable to get at the corpse because it is guarded by his loyal hawks and hounds. In this version, the knight’s lover comes to get the body, and buries him — so the ravens must move on.
The final song is “One Night as I Lay on My Bed,” with Prior handling the lead vocal accompanied by Gay Woods. It’s a simple song about a young man who has a dream of his lover, so he gets up and goes to her house to speak to her.
She worries that her parents will hear them speak, but the man reassures her they are asleep, and she lets him in. If you’ve ever dated someone whose parents might not approve of you, or tried to have a lover in the home of your parents, you can relate to this.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The novelty of these centuries-old folk songs redone, mixing traditional and electric instruments is the big selling point of the album. It caught the fancy of music fans to a sufficient degree that further albums were made with an ever-shifting lineup, and we’ll get to explore the band’s development in the next two of their albums.
As for me, some of these songs are much-beloved, as I had the good fortune to be exposed to some traditional English folk songs early in my life, so this album was a new take on a few old favourites and a chance to explore the style further. It is no accident that I came to Steeleye via my fandom for The Amazing Blondel. Speaking of them, now there’s a box set that’s begging to be made for this same select but enthusiastic audience.
Next time: Please to See the King
The Chasbah 
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