Steeleye

Limited 12 CD set. Steeleye Span are amongst the biggest and most commercially successful folk rock bands. Their career, spanning over 50 years, has seen them achieve four Top 40 albums and two Top 20 singles as well as countless sold out live shows. Through an everchanging line up, their popularity has continued to this day. This collection brings together their recordings over an 11 year tenure with Chrysalis Records covering the years 1972-1983. Housed in a clamshell box with a 56 page perfect bound book, there are 145 tracks, (46 unreleased) over 12 CDs include a number of unreleased studio tracks…

Recorded live on the spring tour 2011.
Even with a career that has brought us an incredible twenty-one studio albums, British folk legends Steeleye Span’s history still includes a number of records that stand out as landmarks. 1974’s Now We Are Six was one such moment, an album that saw the band expand both their line up to a six piece and with it their sound to explore even further their own unique blend of rock and folk music. A critical and commercial success, the record would provide a home to a number of band classics down the years.
Thirty-seven years later and Steeleye Span find themselves at another milestone…

Lark in the Morning: The Early Years is a mid-priced, two-disc rendering of the band's first three records. Remastered for the first time, Hark! the Village Wait, Please to See the King, and Ten Man Mop are featured in their entirety, and in their original sequence, making this an absolute necessity for fans, and a perfect entry point for the uninitiated. Steeleye Span are masters of arrangement, and nowhere is that more evident than on their debut. Though familial tension ran high during its recording, Hark! the Village Wait yielded some of the most agreeable tunes the band ever laid to tape. Beginning with the a cappella "A Calling-On Song," the group established itself as peerless singers, utilizing the dual lead vocals of sirens Gay Woods and Maddy Prior to a tee, particularly on "My Johnny Was a Shoemaker" and "Dark Eyed Sailor." The lineup is legendary, rivaling only Fairport Convention in their Sandy Denny/Richard Thompson heyday. Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Tim Hart, future Pogue Terry Woods, and Gay and Maddy produced a landmark album that continues to inspire countless musicians and fans alike.

The third Steeleye Span album, Ten Man Mop opens with possibly the most beautifully sung number of their entire history, "Gower Wassail," which also makes a very strong case for the use of electric guitars in a traditional folk setting. "Paddy Clancy's Jig/Four Nights Drunk" was the group's first great electric adaptation of traditional dance, None of the rest is quite that good, highlighted by Maddy Prior's haunting performance on "When I Was on Horseback" (although the song drones on a little too long at six-and-a-half minutes), the delightful "Marrowbones," the riveting "Stewball," and the rousing reels "Dowd's Favourite," "£10 Float," and "The Morning Dew."

The third Steeleye Span album, Ten Man Mop opens with possibly the most beautifully sung number of their entire history, "Gower Wassail," which also makes a very strong case for the use of electric guitars in a traditional folk setting. "Paddy Clancy's Jig/Four Nights Drunk" was the group's first great electric adaptation of traditional dance, None of the rest is quite that good, highlighted by Maddy Prior's haunting performance on "When I Was on Horseback" (although the song drones on a little too long at six-and-a-half minutes), the delightful "Marrowbones," the riveting "Stewball," and the rousing reels "Dowd's Favourite," "£10 Float," and "The Morning Dew."

The third Steeleye Span album, Ten Man Mop opens with possibly the most beautifully sung number of their entire history, "Gower Wassail," which also makes a very strong case for the use of electric guitars in a traditional folk setting. "Paddy Clancy's Jig/Four Nights Drunk" was the group's first great electric adaptation of traditional dance, None of the rest is quite that good, highlighted by Maddy Prior's haunting performance on "When I Was on Horseback" (although the song drones on a little too long at six-and-a-half minutes), the delightful "Marrowbones," the riveting "Stewball," and the rousing reels "Dowd's Favourite," "£10 Float," and "The Morning Dew."