The initial idea by soon-to-be ex-Fairport leader Ashley Hutchings, was a band that would explore the electrification of traditional music from the British Isles. It started after discussions at the '69 Keele folk festival in June between Ashley; Maddy Prior & Tim Hart and Dave & Toni Arthur. They discussed their dissatisfaction of the isolationist nature of the British Folk scene, and the unwillingness to consider an 'electric' approach to traditional music from within the folk scene, rather than it coming from the Rock side, which it had so far. In the car on the way home after the festival Tim, Maddy and Ashley also got the seal of approval of Bert Lloyd for what they were planning. Ashley had already explored the use of traditional music in Rock setting with Fairport Convention, culminating in 'Liege and Lief' in Dec 1969. Ashley left Fairport to continue this 'Folk Rock' after the remaining members of Fairport had seen it as a one-off experiment.
Ashley initially tried to form a band with Sweeney's Men (Irvine, Moynihan and Woods) and had good initial discussions with Terry, with whom he had become very good friends with. Johnny Moynihan however was not interested after a falling out with Terry, whilst Andy Irvine wasn't keen without Johnny. This left Ashley with only Terry Woods (now with his wife Gay, who had come over from Ireland). They then considered the Pegg's, but they wanted to explore a more experimental direction. Finally, after an unsuccessful approach to the Dransfield brothers, Ashley then called upon Maddy and Tim, recalling their discussions at Keele. Tim and Maddy were at a point where they were to keen to expand their own sound having been successful as a duo on the folk club scene.
Maddy: "Tim Hart and I had a small flat in Archway, іп a house with
about four flats in it... think three of the flats were actually rented
by folk people, it was a sort of a community.
The first day of the group would be the
dinner we had there with Ashley and Gay & Terry, when they said, “Do you want to
join the band?" At the time, there was a lot of
talk about folk going electric, but basically
nobody could afford it, and we didn't know
how to do it anyway. But Ashley had been
in Fairport Convention and had access to
record companies and things, so he was in
a position to do it.
So the next day we went to Ashley’s
house in Muswell Hill and rehearsed songs
that we liked - Terry and Gay
would have done Dark-Eyed
Sailor, we'd have done
something like Copshawholme Fair, possibly - and
we decided it would work.
We knew it was going to be
a band." Rehearsals continued in December '69.
It was announced on 22nd November in the NME that Ashley had left Fairport, arguably therefore the birth date of Steeleye. Interestingly in a later article (Dec '69) Ashley suggested the line up was still not completely decided at that point.
