REVIEW OF BRITISH LIVE PERFORMANCES
1990 - 1999


The 1990's are coming to a close - the end of a very busy and successful third decade for Steeleye Span. With a relatively stable line-up the band has produced three albums during this time and so now is as good a time as any to look at how and what the band have performed during this period. What follows is a resume of their stage act, concentrating on the period running up to the concert reviews already featured on these pages. I hope it brings back some happy memories and serves as a reminder of how far the band have come.

In 1990 the band were fresh off their twentieth anniversary dates. They also had a new studio album to promote. Recorded in 1989 'Tempted and Tried' became very popular with the fans and a backbone of the following few years stage acts. The line-up was relatively new. In came Tim Harries on bass and Liam Genockey on drums - both experienced session musicians. Bob Johnson, Peter Knight and Maddy Prior were all still with the group. The custom was to begin the show with a jig that allowed the latter to dance onto the stage to great applause. There was no doubting that this was the ritual crowning of the queen of the folk scene. The set then went on with a liberal helping from the latest record - the most popular songs being 'The Fox', 'Shaking of the Sheets' ,'Seagull', 'Jack Hall' and 'Padstow'. At the commencement of the latter Maddy instructed the crowd to join in with a song that was "very mesmeric - particularly after a few beers!" The height of the audience participation came at the end of the song with her cry of "All's-'oss" to which the audience responded "We-'oss". Such a conclusion features on the 1992 live record 'Tonight's the Night' without Maddy's opening explanation that the shout is a customary part of the May Dance from which the song is drawn - something that might cause the listener to wonder! The best versions of most of these songs are to be found on the recent compilation 'Live Through the Years'. This record also features the much rarer track 'Three Butchers' also from the 'Tempted and Tried' album. This track was played live in the early part of the nineties but disappeared as more new material came into the set. The usual classics were also performed - 'Black Jack Davy', 'Gaudete' and the sing-a-long 'All Around My Hat'.

The nucleus of the show would survive into 1991 but new songs were also being added and this would provide the bands only new material for seven years on record. After the uptempo 'Tempted and Tried' Steeleye produced some beautiful and haunting ballads in 'At the Dawn of the Day' and 'Ca the Ewes'. In 'The Weaver and the Factory Maid' which also came into the set at the same time, the band recreated the rhythmic sound of the loom with their instruments as backing to a very traditional tune. Perhaps the tour-de-force of the time though was a ten minute new version of the old border tale of 'Tam Lin'. The song was to stay two years in the touring set and was brilliantly captured on the 1992 album, 'Tonight's the Night'. The record included many of the bands old favourites but it served ostensibly as a showcase for the newer material. The set closed with a superb rendition of 'Cam Ye O Frae France' which is also on the album although it scarcely does justice to the superb drumming of Liam Genockey who soloed brilliantly on it. The old standards and the new stuff were played live during the following years and still formed the basis of the show when the band came back from an Australian tour to play the 30th Cambridge Folk Festival in 1994. They played 'Black Jack Davy' - still introduced by Maddy as being about 'a bit of rough', 'The Weaver and the Factory Maid', the rocking 'Jack Hall' and 'Padstow'. This date was played as the band entered its final days fronted solely by Maddy.

Gay Woods, who had sung with Maddy on the first album 'Hark The Village Wait' in 1970 but had never played live with Steeleye, rejoined the group for its twenty-fifth anniversary tour. Her return provided the group with a second vocalist and a brief chance to reprise some of their most traditional tunes - performing them as they were originally sung for the first time. This was very much a 'golden age' for the live audience. On one hand 'Tam Lin' showed how well the band had matured, on the other there were great moments to be relived; Gay and Maddy together singing 'My Johnny Was A Shoemaker', 'Dark Eyed Sailor' back in the set and Gay singing 'Lowlands of Holland'. Fortunately a video of the best of these concerts was recorded to commemorate the event.

The tour proved so successful that the new line-up began to record a new album - their first studio record in seven years and Gay's first for Steeleye in sixteen! Some of the new material was premiered early in the stage act particularly 'Harvest of the Moon' which augured well for the forthcoming LP. When it came out in 1996 it received positive reviews - fortunately really as it was Maddy's swansong with the band she had fronted for a quarter of a century. The many highlights of the album translated well to live performance, a fact ably demonstrated by how many of the songs still remain in the set notwithstanding the arrival of another studio record only two years later. Worthy of special mention though is 'Corbies' an updated version of the original from the first record and the second new version recorded by Maddy (who had played an earlier revision in her solo set with Nick Holland for several years.) and also 'The Water Is Wide'. The latter track gives plenty of room for improvisation from Peter Knight who has soloed on it over the past few years although earlier incarnations on stage also featured a Bob Johnson guitar solo. One of Gay's adopted tracks 'Old Maid in the Garrett' also came out of this period. It was whilst the first airings of the 'Time' album tracks were being played that Maddy announced a reunion of all the Steeleye musicians, or at least "those that are speaking" for a concert to trace the bands musical roots. The concert called 'The Journey' took place in London and was released as an album in 1999, (see fuller review on this site).
It was after 'Time' was released that Maddy called it on her career with the band. The split deprived the group of its only original member to have gone the entire distance but it also allowed Gay Woods to step up alone into the spotlight. When she originally returned to the band in 1994 she was, understandably, subdued. Now faced with the prospect of replacing the irreplaceable she came out of the shadows and soon wooed audiences on the bands tours. Those who had not seen the band were pleasantly surprised by the transition and the gradual Irish influence she brought to the bands live shows. This was most obvious when the group began to play the material that became 'Horkstow Grange'. The overall effect was that the group not only survived the loss of a founder and key member but actually gained a new direction in the process.

There was only one further line-up change to record. Liam Genockey, who had arrived at the same time as Tim Harries, departed leaving the band with no drummer. They didn't replace him and made 'Horkstow Grange' and subsequent tours without an official fifth member and using the services of the well-known Dave Mattocks. It is interesting to note that as the thirtieth anniversary came about in 1999 Gerry Conway also appeared as a guest. He played drums on the recording of 'Dark-Eyed Sailor' and so the tour reunited him and Gay for the first time during a historic rendition of the song.

Nick Clark