"All Around My Hat" perfectly encapsulated Steeleye Span's nascent style, blending their folk sound with more accessible, commercial rock. It subtly replaced their usual fusion of artful folk and traditional folk from their earlier works, particularly their predecessors "Now We Are Six" (1974) and "Commoners Crown" (1975). For this new album, curiously released months after "Commoners Crown", the band, led by the duo Maddy Prior and Tim Hart (vocals and guitars respectively), expanded their musical horizons into the realm of folk-influenced rock, highlighting Bob Johnson's powerful electric guitar riffs. With a repertoire full of attractive songs such as "All Around My Hat", "Gamble Gold", "Hard Times Of Old England", "Sun Waves" or "Dance With Me", with this album, the eighth chronologically of Steeleye Span, they would achieve their greatest commercial success, achieving a gold record in the British charts and considerable sales outside the United Kingdom.
Steeleye Span together with the Fairport Convention are the two great standards of British folk in their entire history.
Without underestimating the Convention, Steeleye Span knew how to evolve from folk to rock in a spectacular way, billing some of the genre's masterpieces for four decades
In 1974 Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson produced his album "Now We Are Six" and decisively influenced the band's progressive evolution towards more experimental terrain.
A year later they published "Commoners Crown", a work as extraordinary as it is sublime, here the experience with Ian Anderson is so evident that at times the band sounds like Jethro Tull in its most folk rock vibe.
However the group goes further and include influences from classical and baroque music as in the theme "Bach Goes To Limerick" that perfectly combines the classic flavor with jigas so inspired by traditional Irish folk.
This is one of the high points of an album that shows a cohesion without any fissure and that shows an incredible balance between folk and rock, tipping the scales towards this last genre, which does not subtract any handicap, but rather enriches tremendously the result of a great album making it an absolute gem of English folk rock.
The fourth album from British band Steeleye Span showcases their evolution towards electric folk, while exploring traditional British folk. Changes in several members bring a renewed freshness and a new dimension to the band's sound. Peter Knight's magnificent contributions on violin, banjo, and mandolin, Maddy Prior's sublime vocals, and the powerful drumming of guitarist Bob Johnson and bassist Rick Kemp provide the necessary strength to consider this their best work. Songs like the traditional Scottish "Sheep-crook and black dog" become a poignant funeral dirge, featuring a sublime Maddy Prior. Another traditional song from the late 19th century, "King Henry", constitutes the album's high point, while the folk songs "Rose Bud In June", "Jigs: The Bride's Favorite, Tansey's Fancy", the lively "Royal Forester", the folk rock "Sheep-Crook And Blue Black Dog" or the version of the English folk tale "John Barleycorn", are part of an essential album of the best British folk rock.
