Steeleye update

When I heard the English electric folk band Steeleye Span, my long-time favorites in that biz, live in San Francisco in July 2015, I wrote of my particular pleasure at their rendition of "King Henry".

Well, now you can hear it, because a video of the song from eight days later on the same tour has come to my attention. That's guitarist Julian Littman singing lead, violinist Jessie May Smart, redoubtable vocalist Maddy Prior, drummer Liam Genockey in the back, and over on the side, substitute guest bassist Nils Peterson.

Well, there's more. All sorts of good videos are showing up online. (You might want to watch the volume, as the rest of these were recorded at a much higher level than the first one.) Here they are with a really outstanding version of "All Around My Hat" at the Cropredy Festival the next year, 2016. Here the bassist (falling off the right side of the picture again) is Rick Kemp, who'd come out of retirement, as he has several times before, to fill in between permanent bass players. Also, guitarist Andrew "Spud" Sinclair has joined the band; he's behind Jessie and Maddy.

And I couldn't resist this little bit also from Cropredy 2016: host band Fairport Convention, led by Simon Nicol and Dave Pegg, paying tribute to Steeleye with a spoof of one of their most famous songs.

And just in case you're not worn out, here's a full hour Steeleye concert from a folk festival just five months ago. The lineup has filled out and there's seven members now: new bassist Roger Carey behind Jessie, and multi-instrumentalist and singer Benji Kirkpatrick (son of one-time Steeleye accordionist John Kirkpatrick), playing banjo in the first song, standing between Maddy and Julian. It's a heavier rock sound, too much for my taste on the newer songs: however, the beefed up remakes of some of their gentler early numbers, a practice Steeleye has been undertaking for some years now, seem to me to be excellently judged. The quantity of front-line talent is now a match for any previous incarnation of the band. This is, all around, the best Steeleye lineup since the Silver Age of the 90s, and my guess on their prospects has gone well up.

I see I'm one album behind in my collection of their studio recordings, so I've ordered that.