response 155 of 157:

Mar 28 10:23 UTC 2005

Having realized that I'd completely forgotten Steeley Span's "They
Called Her Babylon" in the year since it arrived (and the year since I'd
listened to it), I got out all four Steeleye albums I have from the last
7 years and gave them all a good listen.

Verdict: The two albums without Maddy Prior are utterly hopeless.  Gay
Woods is a good singer but not outstanding.  Bob Johnson tries to sing
material completely unsuited for him.  Tim Harries' songwriting is
unattractive.  However good Dave Mattacks was as a drummer for Fairport,
he's not suited for Steeleye: overbearing without the tightness of Liam
Genocky.

The two more recent albums are much better.  "Present" is the one that
sounds like an old pair of shoes: just pleasant.  "They Call Her
Babylon" improves on further relistening, although with only one
outstanding track, "Heir of Linne", it's not a great Steeleye album. 
But at least it has the sound and spirit of the early-mid 1990s albums.

If I ever write another history of Steeleye, I think I have the names
for the periods:
The Early Years (1970-72)
The Golden Age (1973-76)
The Interval (1977-78)
The Fallow Period (1980-89)
The Silver Age (1990-96)
The Black Years (1998-2000)
The Third Revival (2002-  )

response 157 of 157:

May 25 20:43 UTC 2005

A track from the new Ashley Hutchings project just became this week's
ear-worm.   The lyrics have some problems, but the tune is pretty good
and the arrangement is first rate.  Hutchings' new project is 
a band called The Rainbow Chasers, which is Hutchings, two young women
and one young guy; everybody sings, and the women play violin and viola
so there is sort of a poppy string-quartet thing going on.

Hutchings was the guest on this week's Mike Harding show (which I just
missed, sigh, but I have the replay available) so most likely more
tracks from the new album are on that show.

Ashley Hutchings, for those who don't know, is *the* most important
figure from the 1960's & 1970's British folk-rock scene -- as an 
intellectual influence and organizer, rather than as a pure musician.
Hutchings was a founding member of Fairport Convention and he was 
the one who pushed the band into working more extensively with 
traditional music.
He quit Fairport and organized Steeleye Span to focus even more on 
traditional music, and then he quit Steeleye Span and started 
The Albion Band to focus even more on English music (meaning less
of the Irish and Scottish songs).  Probably half or more of the 
classic British folk-rock albums from that period either have
Ashley playing on them, or are by bands that Ashley started. 

(And his output since 1990 has been mostly turgid, MOR pop crap --
I have bought hardly any of his voluminous output in the last decade.)