50 Years of Steeleye Span! 

Over 2000 gigs across  66 UK tours, 14 European tours, 12 US tours & 9 Australian tours. 24 Studio albums including 1 Gold & 4 Silver. 2 Hit Singles; 2 TV series; 4 Plays and nearly 100 festivals played!

To begin your journey use the menu above or start here where it all began in 1969-1973

LATEST NEWS

NEW...  2020 - '50th Anniversary of Hark the Village Wait' - tour

Steeleye will be touring in April/May 2020! The tour is tagged as above - celebrating 50 years since Hark the Village Wait. The band toured playing the album in full in 2017 so will be interesting to see what they plan to do this time. There are also festival appearances and apparently an October UK Tour planned as well. Go to the 2019/2020 page  to see 2020 gigs/festival appearances as and when I hear about them. 

16th Dec: DVD/CD '50th Anniversary Tour'

Now available on ParkRecords.com, a new Live DVD/CD 4 disk set including a short documentary about the history of the band! The DVD's cover a whole set from the April 2019 tour (included as a CD) and selected tracks from Autumn 2018 (2nd DVD), thus covering a great selection of recent live material by the current line up with both Jessie and Violeta on fiddle.  The documentary features interviews with various ex band members/managers etc, including the only appearance of Bob Johnson since 2001. 

This release is a very welcome and comprehensive overview of the current line up's live set list.  With 28 tracks it has every song played across the Autumn '18 & Spring '19 tours apart from ' Copshawholme Fair'.  

New Archive LIVE CD - De Montfort Hall Feb 1978. Angel Air Records.

Recorded for a radio broadcast and now available as a live CD, released by Angel Air Records. An exciting release because it fills in the gaps left by the relatively short 'Live at Last' album from 1978. It means a chance to hear the line up's rousing versions of 'Cam Ye O'er Frae France', The Boar's Head and set closer 'Seventeen Come Sunday', as well as live versions of Awake Awake and Galtee Farmer. 

 1. Galtee Farmer; 2. Awake Awake; 3. The Saucy Sailor; 4. The Black Freighter; 5. Hunting The Wren; 6. Sweep, Chimney Sweep; 7. The Duke Of Athols Highlanders; 8. Walter Bulwer’s Polka; 9. Cam Ye O’er Frae France; 10. The Boar’s Head; 11. Seventeen Come Sunday; 12. Rave On

New 2019 studio album! -  'EST'd 1969'

Available to buy direct from Park Records and from Amazon. 

BOOKS ABOUT STEELEYE SPAN

I have added a small new section about the various books that have covered, in relative detail, the history of the band and its key members. Most interestingly there is a new book released 9th December 2019 titled 'All Around My Hat' - The Steeleye Span Story. I have added it to the Contact/Links section for now. 

Tim Hart and Maddy Prior

I have added a new Page featuring the career of 'Tim Hart and Maddy Prior' as a duo, who were mainly active 1967-1971. The page includes their BBC Radio Sessions collated once again by Chris Haines. 

A CHAT WITH ADRIAN HOPKINS 

Adrian Hopkins was kind enough to have a chat with me about his time with the band. His involvement with Steeleye started when he joined Chrysalis as an in-house promoter in the mid 70's. He slowly started spending more and more time promoting Steeleye. He worked very closely with Tony Secunda, and it was Adrian who Tony sent up into the roof of the Hammersmith to drop money down from the ceiling in '76! Adrian then took over all management and promotional duties when the band reformed in 1980, a role that extended right through the 80's and most of the 90's (now assisted with promotion by Park Records) and was the Manager until Maddy left in 1997. His role in keeping the band together and achieving enough commercial/touring success to keep going during these hard decades for 'folk' bands cannot be underestimated. 

I have included various snippets of info from our chat in the TimeLine plus, at the end of 1985 I have included some great 'airport' stories that Adrian remembers from his various US and Australian tours with the band! 

RECENT ARCHIVE VIDEOS

 All available to view below for the first time. First two are Steeleye receiving the 2005 Good Tradition award at the BBC Folk Awards and singing Van Diemen's land live. The next two from a Finnish TV performance in 1976; the 5th is the 1976 Promo Video for the 1976 single 'London'; the 6th an Australian TV performance from October 1986 - 'Lady Diamond'.  More details on the relevant years page.

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"Pity them who see him suffer,
Pity poor old Steeleye Span;
John Bowlin’s deeds they will be remembered"

(Horkstow Grange' Trad. Ar.')

"The thing about folk songs is their timelessness. 

They are always relevant even though they are very old. 

Put them in a modern setting and they become of modern consequence"

(Maddy Prior, 1972)

This site aims to provide the most comprehensive performance and touring history of the Folk-Rock legends Steeleye Span, all set out in a time-line archive of the Band.  It includes all known Gigs, Tours, Radio and TV appearances plus every known set list, details all band/management changes as and when they happened.  If you want more detail about the actual album/Song etc then see Links for detailed discogs.. 

This is and always will be Work-in-Progress as I am always adding information/pictures/images. If anyone has an concerns with ownership of any of the images used then please contact me and I will remove them immediately, I am only using them for historical interest and not for commercial gain. I welcome any new information and/or corrections, which will of course be credited, please contact me using the form on the Contacts page.