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calimacAnyone who still remembers Steeleye Span will regret the news that former member Tim Hart died on Thursday at the age of 61. He'd been known to have been seriously ill for some time, so his death was not a surprise, but it's worth pausing to honour the passing of this giant of the English folk-revival and electric-folk musical movements.
Hart came to prominence in the late '60s in a duo with Maddy Prior. They went around the folk circuit singing traditional English folk songs with nothing but their two voices and Hart's acoustic guitar, which they recorded on two albums called Folk Songs of Old England. But they became frustrated with the purist restrictions on musical style, and along with making a somewhat lusher album with additional musicians called Summer Solstice (much of which is on YouTube), they jumped at the chance in 1969 to join Ashley Hutchings' pioneering electric-folk group, Steeleye Span, as founding members.
Hart remained with Steeleye throughout their entire classic period, until the early 80s; his last album with them was Sails of Silver. He was their utility instrumentalist, playing second guitar, along with electric dulcimer, spoons, and various other things. His expressive, reedy tenor, with an unusual diction in which the plosives sometimes came out as nasals, took the lead in such memorable songs as "Fighting for Strangers" and "The Bold Poachers". When Steeleye recorded the sea shanty "General Taylor", Hart sang the solos as shantymaster.
During Steeleye's brief breakup in 1979, Hart took the opportunity (as did Prior) to record a solo pop album of his own compositions with a session band (Rick Kemp and Nigel Pegrum of Steeleye among their number). This self-titled album is not too bad, actually, with some memorable songs in a variety of styles including a reggae number, expressing a "love 'em and leave 'em" philosophy of life inside a jacket by Adrian Chesterman depicting Hart's hand melting as he contemplates a surreal landscape in which tree trunks, hills, and lakes take the shapes of conventionally attractive women's bodies. (Unfortunately, the two songs from it I could find on YouTube are distinctly not the album's best.)
But Hart's masterpiece came a bit later, in the early 80s. He organized a troupe of folk musicians (again including Steeleye alumni) for two albums of lively folk arrangements of children's nursery rhymes. Alas, I never found the second of these, nor the CD that reissued both together, but the LP of My Very Favourite Nursery Rhyme Record is one of my treasured possessions. You might think that an album of "Nick Nack Paddy Wack" and "London Bridge is Falling Down" would be dull, but oh would you be mistaken. The songs are performed with such verve and enthusiasm as to be totally infectious, to the extent that when I played it for my ever-enthusiastic friend Tina, we found ourselves singing along to the pseudo-American countrified version of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm", after which we stared at each other in disbelief that we'd actually done something so corny. But such was Hart's magic.
Hart also worked as a record producer for a while, but in the mid 80s he retired from music altogether and moved to the Canary Islands, where he stayed for the rest of his life. He emerged and performed only rarely, notably for the one time I ever saw him, at the great Steeleye Span reunion anniversary concert in London in 1995. He'd cut the long hair and shaved off the gunslinger mustache that had distinguished him throughout his folk years, and with the addition of a Canary Islands tan, now rather resembled Paul McCartney. It was good to have him back, however briefly.
Hart came to prominence in the late '60s in a duo with Maddy Prior. They went around the folk circuit singing traditional English folk songs with nothing but their two voices and Hart's acoustic guitar, which they recorded on two albums called Folk Songs of Old England. But they became frustrated with the purist restrictions on musical style, and along with making a somewhat lusher album with additional musicians called Summer Solstice (much of which is on YouTube), they jumped at the chance in 1969 to join Ashley Hutchings' pioneering electric-folk group, Steeleye Span, as founding members.
Hart remained with Steeleye throughout their entire classic period, until the early 80s; his last album with them was Sails of Silver. He was their utility instrumentalist, playing second guitar, along with electric dulcimer, spoons, and various other things. His expressive, reedy tenor, with an unusual diction in which the plosives sometimes came out as nasals, took the lead in such memorable songs as "Fighting for Strangers" and "The Bold Poachers". When Steeleye recorded the sea shanty "General Taylor", Hart sang the solos as shantymaster.
During Steeleye's brief breakup in 1979, Hart took the opportunity (as did Prior) to record a solo pop album of his own compositions with a session band (Rick Kemp and Nigel Pegrum of Steeleye among their number). This self-titled album is not too bad, actually, with some memorable songs in a variety of styles including a reggae number, expressing a "love 'em and leave 'em" philosophy of life inside a jacket by Adrian Chesterman depicting Hart's hand melting as he contemplates a surreal landscape in which tree trunks, hills, and lakes take the shapes of conventionally attractive women's bodies. (Unfortunately, the two songs from it I could find on YouTube are distinctly not the album's best.)
But Hart's masterpiece came a bit later, in the early 80s. He organized a troupe of folk musicians (again including Steeleye alumni) for two albums of lively folk arrangements of children's nursery rhymes. Alas, I never found the second of these, nor the CD that reissued both together, but the LP of My Very Favourite Nursery Rhyme Record is one of my treasured possessions. You might think that an album of "Nick Nack Paddy Wack" and "London Bridge is Falling Down" would be dull, but oh would you be mistaken. The songs are performed with such verve and enthusiasm as to be totally infectious, to the extent that when I played it for my ever-enthusiastic friend Tina, we found ourselves singing along to the pseudo-American countrified version of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm", after which we stared at each other in disbelief that we'd actually done something so corny. But such was Hart's magic.
Hart also worked as a record producer for a while, but in the mid 80s he retired from music altogether and moved to the Canary Islands, where he stayed for the rest of his life. He emerged and performed only rarely, notably for the one time I ever saw him, at the great Steeleye Span reunion anniversary concert in London in 1995. He'd cut the long hair and shaved off the gunslinger mustache that had distinguished him throughout his folk years, and with the addition of a Canary Islands tan, now rather resembled Paul McCartney. It was good to have him back, however briefly.
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Date: 2009-12-31 07:59 am (UTC)(Heh. "Celtic". No, the Celts would not agree. Steleye Span are English.)