Steeleye Span

Alexander William Roberton (7 July 1942 – 25 July 2022) was a British record producer and music business owner.

"The Queen of Hearts" is the debut album from Offa Rex, an adventurous project featuring English singer/multi-instrumentalist Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists. Produced and recorded by Tucker Martine (Modest Mouse, My Morning Jacket, Neko Case) and Colin Meloy at Martine's studio in Portland, OR, the album draws largely on traditional English-Irish-Scottish repertoire to create a transatlantic musical conversation that flirts with psychedelia and folk rock while maintaining its own inimitable identity.

61-track, 4-CD set explores the experimental side of the British folk scene, from the folk-rock era to the present.
Includes new and unreleased recordings from Imagined Village (the first new music from the band in 9 years, with vocals from Eliza Carthy), Justin Adams, and Stick In The Wheel, unreleased songs from Maddy Prior and Lavinia Black-wall, and rare demos from Sandy Denny and Richard and Linda Thompson. The remarkable cast also includes everyone from Shirley Collins and Fairport Convention to Billy Bragg, June Tabor and Oysterband, Eliza Carthy, Jim Moray, Olivia Chaney, Spiro, Lau, Jon Boden, Martyn Bennet, Capercaillie, Stick In The Wheel, Sam Lee, Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita, Yorkston Thorne Khan and many more. Compiled by writer and broadcaster Robin Denselow, who also wrote the 24-page sleeve notes, the boxset is released to coincide with publication of the book of the same title (on Omnibus) - which is an updated version of the celebrated story of the folk-rock era The Electric Muse, first published in 1975. This boxset brings together an extraordinary cast of great musicians for the first time, and tells the story of how British traditional music has been re-worked with influences not just from rock but from punk, rap, electronica, big band brass, and sounds and styles from around the world.

It's now half-a-century since British folk rock became A Thing, with the early practitioners breaking new ground and inspiring an entire scene that peaked in the late Sixties/early Seventies. Earnest young post-Dylan singer/songwriters moved away from the intimacy of the folk clubs in favour of the nascent college/university circuit. Counter-cultural iconoclasts The Incredible String Band became a seismic influence on a whole raft of bands now categorised as acid-folk, Pentangle's use of acoustic instrumentation within a nominally rock framework attracted many emulators (though arguably no real equals), while Fairport Convention graduated from their initial American West Coast-indebted sound to explore their own country's musical heritage, thus establishing the concept of indigenous English folk rock (a baton that would be picked up by the likes of Ashley Hutchings' post-Fairport venture Steeleye Span and many others).

After the UK folk explosion of the early sixties, artists like The Incredible String Band, Pentagle, Cob, Fairport Convention and Strangely Strange led the genre into an experimental phase embracing psychedelia.
The Erewhon CD series has fortunately released the majority of the rarest releases of that era, albums that were often privately issued and now command hundreds of pounds amongst collectors.
These collections include some of the best tracks by those artists together with previously unavailable songs by the Trees, Tir Na Nog, Mellow Candle and Horison amongst others.
Opening with a sublime hippie masterpiece by Shide and Acorn, this volume journeys through the classic electric folk of Loudest Whisper, Midwinter and Gallery. Not to forget Baroque moments form Tir Na Nog and Mellow Candle, the potent musicianship of Caedmon and the lost psychedelic genius of parameter. More can be found on volume two and forthcoming releases.

After the UK folk explosion of the early sixties, artists like The Incredible String Band, Pentagle, Cob, Fairport Convention and Strangely Strange led the genre into an experimental phase embracing psychedelia.
The Erewhon CD series has fortunately released the majority of the rarest releases of that era, albums that were often privately issued and now command hundreds of pounds amongst collectors.
These collections include some of the best tracks by those artists together with previously unavailable songs by the Trees, Tir Na Nog, Mellow Candle and Horison amongst others.
Opening with a sublime hippie masterpiece by Shide and Acorn, this volume journeys through the classic electric folk of Loudest Whisper, Midwinter and Gallery. Not to forget Baroque moments form Tir Na Nog and Mellow Candle, the potent musicianship of Caedmon and the lost psychedelic genius of parameter. More can be found on volume two and forthcoming releases.

"The Owl Service" è una fiaba del 1967 di Alan Garner che parla di una donna nata dai fiori e creata da un mago. Da questa novella molto nota in Galles ha preso il nome del suo gruppo Steven Collins, amante spassionato di film e televisione britannica oltre che cultore incredibile del magico suono del folk revival inglese. Esordisce con un disco splendido quale "A garland of song" (2007) seguito da "The View From a Hill" (2010), altro gioiellino, per proseguire con svariati eps e progetti paralleli che lo vedono sempre coinvolto in prima persona o in tandem con leggende del folk d'Albione quali Alison O'Donnell nel mini disco "The fabric of folk", lei è una delle voci dei Mellow Candle, un favoloso album per la Deram a nome "Swaddling Songs" (1972). Questi due dischi si rifanno alle ballads ed ai traditionals di terra d'Inghilterra, pesantemente omaggiate nei settanta da bands storiche quali la santa trinità formata da Fairport Convention, Pentangle e Steeleye Span e da tutti i gruppi minori, in teoria, del cosiddetto sottobosco musicale.