Posted on by chasinvictoria

Steeleye Span – All Things Are Quite Silent (Disc 2)

[Cherry Tree, 2019]

Please to see the King

THE OVERVIEW

The second album from Steeleye Span is very much “more of the same,” and yet wildly different at the same time. Having found an audience that embraced their mix of modern, classic, and ancient instruments combined with mostly traditional English folk songs, they stuck to their unique “formula” of “traditional folk songs with some electric guitar and bass” doggedly.

So much so, in fact, that the first track on Please to see the King is a re-recorded version of “The Blacksmith” from their previous album! It’s hard to guess at the reasons why, but the new arrangement sets a tone of syncopation and other percussion in place of drums, and involves the reformulated band to a bigger degree vocally.

To the casual listener, this sounds very much like the previous album, with familiar vocalists Maddy Prior and Tim Hart and a similar musical mix of acoustic and electric instruments. The Woods, Gay and Terry, left the band before the group had even played its first live gig, and Gay’s presence in particular is missed.

However, this new lineup (adding friend of the band Martin Carthy, who had originally suggested the band’s name, and fiddler Peter Knight to replace the Woods) is widely considered the “definitive” early Steeleye lineup, with the first album personnel considered an excellent but “false start,” since the band would move into a heavier space with more male voices, percussion but no drums, and more group singing.

The cumulative effect is that this is something of a different band doing things a bit differently, but the additional backing harmonies and similar material helps cushion the changes. It helps that this same lineup stuck around long enough to record the follow-up album, Ten Man Mop, and even tour!

This album did pretty well, reaching #45 on the UK album charts, but died a death in the US on initial release. A later re-release of the album following the band signing to Chrysalis Records the following year sold far better in the US.

THE ALBUM

The title of the album refers to a tradition carried out on St. Stephen’s Day (December 26th), the “Cutty Wren” ceremony. A caged wren is paraded around in towns and villages as if it were the king.

This is directly referred to in the album by the penultimate song on the album, “The King.” The lads who would parade the Cutty Wren were referred to as “wren boys.”

“The King” is often sung around Christmastime, and the band sings it a cappella, which will remind listeners of the “Calling-On Song” from the first album and is every bit as charming as that one.

This album starts with notes from electric guitar and bass that begins with the new version of “The Blacksmith,” with another lovely lead vocal from Prior. The middle eight is an a capella la-la chorus from the whole band, an instrumental break, and then Prior returns accompanied by some backing vocals. Organ can be heard in the background, and another instrumental break finally debuts Knight’s fiddle before wrapping up with another a capella section.

“Cold Haily, Windy Night” is, to be blunt, a song about a soldier begging his lover to let him in to the house on the aforementioned night. After some persuading and the possible detection by her mother, the maiden does let him in and they end up making love.

The soldier turns out to be a cad who, having gotten what he wanted, exits stage left — leaving a angry girl and her furious mum. It’s sung by Tim Hart in his stylised “folk song” manner.

Next up: two instrumental jigs combined into one piece. “Bryan O’Lynn” was a character from Irish folk song who was quite the dandy, though none of the lyrics are sung here. “The Hag with the Money” (Cailleach An Airgid) is another traditional song with lyrics, sadly not sung (as the original song is rather amusing).

We get back to lyrics and Maddy on lead with “Princess Charlie Stuart,” a song about good old Bonnie Prince Charlie. It covers the rebellion led by Charlie to restore the House of Stuart to the throne at the Battle of Culloden in 1745. It was ultimately unsuccessful, and Stuart was exiled first to France, then to Spain, the latter of which is mentioned in the song.

It’s a typically beautiful and haunting Scottish ballad, sung from his love’s perspective and hailing both his physical stature as well as the willingness of 700 highlanders to die in battle for him.

“Boys of Bedlam” is a song that dates from 1618, and is one of the earliest folk songs that deals with mental illness and insanity. “Bedlam” is shorthand for St. Mary Bethlehem hospital in London, now known as Bethlem Royal Hospital, which was an insane asylum. The hospital funded itself, in part, by charging townsfolk a penny to come and gawk at the antics of the unsupervised inmates.

The song starts off as a minimalist duet with Maddy and Martin, with just the simplest percussion. This expands slowly with electric bass imitating a bell tolling, then the pace picks up with guitar, mandolin, and organ and the song becomes a bit more … jolly? Both the object of the song and the narrator describe visions that are fairly described as bonkers.

The song shifts again into its last verse with somber, wailing backing vocals, with the faster pace now seeming more … sinister. A touch of banjo rounds out the finale.

“False Knight on the Road” is another traditional, which might be considered the “original version” of the more well-known song, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Both songs document a confrontation between a mortal and the Devil (the false knight), but in this case its a brave boy who stands his ground during the quizzing and riddles from Satan. Ultimately, the Devil gives up and concedes the contest.

This moves us back to Maddy singing, with “The Lark in the Morning,” which always reminds me of the “argument” about whether it is night or day that Romeo & Juliet have in their bed in the wee hours. The fiddle on this track enhances the sweetness of the melody.

“Female Drummer” also features Prior, singing about a young lass who disguises herself and becomes a drummer soldier in disguise. She maintains the ruse until another girl falls in love with her and “finds” that her soldier boy is a girl, reports the drummer to her superior, who “unbuttoned my red tunic and he found that it was true/‘It’s a shame,’ he says, ‘to lose a pretty drummer boy like you.”

We finally arrive to the finale of the album, consisting of the outstanding a capella song “The King,” and the climax of the entire album, “Lovely on the Water.” The blending of the band’s voices on “The King” is just fabulous.

Finally, the song that truly embodies the best of this incarnation of the band, a serpentine guitar line with rock-solid bass, and Prior’s story-song rendition of “Lovely on the Water.” It is yet another naval-wartime ballad, tells the tale of a couple where the man must leave, and their sad parting dialog.

The middle eight takes a forewarning turn, cleverly using the instruments to recreate the troubles and perils ahead, before he may someday return. Unlike most other songs of this nature, the lyrics do not foretell or reveal a tragic ending, leaving their fate open-ended.

THE BOTTOM LINE

If you’re in for a penny with this band, then you’re in for a pound. While putting more emphasis on the electric side of their musical equation, these remain traditional English folk tunes in both style and subject matter, and are lovingly resurrected for a new generation and a wider audience here.

If you enjoyed the first album, you’ll almost certainly like this one as well, despite the shift towards more male voices; Martin and Tim shoulder most of that burden, and are distinct enough in their styles to add flavour to the stew, and clever overdubbing of Maddy doing background vocals to accompany her leads makes Gay Woods’ departure a little easier to overlook. Martin and fiddler Peter Knight add new sounds to the repertoire, nicely making up for Terry Woods’ departure as well.

The selection of material is also very strong, with one new version of an old favourite to start things off and ending on a tremendously strong wartime ballad, with a variety of tunes and subjects interspersed as they were on the previous album, with only the instrument jig break seeming a little out of step. Now that the Mk II Steeleye has gotten off the ground, we’ll see if they can keep it going for another record before the lineup evolves yet again.

Next time … Mr Reservoir Butler Rides Again!

Posted on by chasinvictoria

Steeleye Span – All Things are Quite Silent (Disc 1)

[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.

A lovely 2000 performance featuring both Maddy Prior and Gay Woods

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