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72-632: Home Service is a British folk rock group, formed in late 1980 from a nucleus of musicians who had been playing in Ashley Hutchings ' Albion Band . Their career is generally agreed to have peaked with the album Alright Jack , and has had an influence on later work. John Tams and several other members of the band, have had solo careers and worked in other projects. In 2016 John Kirkpatrick replaced Tams as main singer in Home Service, and features as such on their next album. Home Service

144-535: A basis for their music, in contrast to the early modern and 19th century ballada that dominated the output of Fairport Convention. This followed the trend explored by Steeleye Span, and exemplified by their 1972 album Below the Salt . Acts in this area included Gryphon , Gentle Giant and Third Ear Band . In Germany Ougenweide , originally formed in 1970 as an acoustic folk group, opted to draw exclusively on High German medieval music when they electrified, setting

216-549: A clear interest in more traditional sounds on Minstrel in the Gallery (1975), but it was in 1977 with the release of Songs from the Wood (1977) that Anderson took the band into electric folk territory. All the songs on the album focused on rural life and, in addition to the normal electronic instruments and flute of the band, used mandolin, lute and a pipe organ. Two tracks, 'Hunting Girl' and particularly 'Velvet Green' followed

288-674: A composer, choreographer and musical director, Kirkpatrick has contributed to over 60 plays in the theatre and on radio. Kirkpatrick was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to folk music. The tracks Kirkpatrick performs on in the Three Score and Ten boxed set are "The Rose Of Britain's Isle" / "Glorishears" from the Rose Of Britain's Isle ; " The Maid and

360-465: A consequence of this lack of interest the three Home Service albums released between 1984 and 1986 came out on three different independent labels (Jigsaw, Coda and Making Waves), which further dented their commercial prospects. In the later 1980s, things began to look much more positive for the genre. Despite formally disbanding in 1979, Fairport Convention staged what were initially called "reunion" concerts annually from 1980, which eventually evolved into

432-464: A dance team called Gloucestershire Old Spot Morris Dancers, he formed Shropshire Bedlams to perform local dances in the Border Morris style. In the early weeks some girls turned up and rather than have a mixed morris team, Harris took the girls aside to form Martha Rhoden's Tuppenny Dish; both teams are still flourishing and celebrated their fortieth anniversary in 2015. By this time Kirkpatrick

504-521: A decisive move away from traditional songs. It was a commercial failure and their last album for six years as they became a part-time touring band. However, in 1986 they produced Back in Line and since then, despite several line-up changes, they have continued to perform and have recorded eight more albums. Some bands like Stone Angel and Jack the Lad , who had disbanded in the 1970s, had reformed and resumed

576-465: A forthcoming album of previously unheard live recordings from 1986. In 2015, Tams retired from Home Service and was replaced by John Kirkpatrick as main singer. Kirkpatrick features as such on their first new album, A New Ground . Tams, however, returned for a triumphant appearance at Fairport's Cropredy Convention in August 2022, a performance which revisited and revitalised much of the material from

648-708: A fourth album of entirely traditional material, Cruel Sister , in 1970, performed very much in the British folk rock mould. Similarly, Swarbrick's former playing partner, Martin Carthy , joined Steeleye Span in 1971 to the astonishment of many in the folk music world. Five Hand Reel , a band formed out of the remnants of Spencer's Feat, proved to be one of the more successful and influential folk rock bands. Releasing four albums with Topic/RCA records, they were popular in Europe, where they gave most of their performances. Unlike

720-669: A group called Band of Hope . He recorded with Frankie Armstrong in 1996 and 1997. They share a love of early English ballads. He performed with accordion wizard Chris Parkinson as the Sultans of Squeeze , and the pair have released one album. In 1997, he decided to front his own "rock-folk" band, and put together a line-up consisting of Graeme Taylor (guitar, electric guitar, banjo, mandolin – ex Gryphon , The Albion Band and Home Service ), Mike Gregory (drums, percussion – ex Albion Band, Home Service), Dave Berry (electric bass, double bass, tuba) and Paul Burgess (fiddle, recorders – from

792-571: A living by playing to a small but committed audience. This meant that there were, by the later 1960s, a group of performers with musical skill and knowledge of a wide variety of traditional songs and tunes. A number of groups who were part of the folk revival experimented with electrification in the mid-1960s. These included the unrecorded efforts of Sweeney's Men from Ireland, the jazz folk group Pentangle , who moved from purely acoustic instrumentation to introducing electric guitar on their later albums, Eclection , who released one album in 1968, and

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864-464: A recording or touring career. Hard rock and progressive rock bands such as Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull incorporated elements of folk music in their music, though they are not considered part of the folk rock movement. Led Zeppelin had shared a stage with Fairport Convention at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music in 1970. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page 's interest in the genre

936-712: A regular at a folk club in the Roebuck pub in Tottenham Court Road and led the resident group, Dingle's Chillybom Band. The club hosted a film show of Morris dancing and Ashley Hutchings turned up. It was the beginning of a long musical relationship. In 1972 he teamed up with Ashley and others on the album Morris On . In 1972, Kirkpatrick recorded his first solo album Jump at the Sun which included Richard Thompson on acoustic guitar. In 1973, Kirkpatrick moved to Shropshire and married Sue Harris . After seeing

1008-428: A selection of the music as The Mysteries in 1985. Findon joined the band as a full member, but Bill Caddick, unhappy with the lack of live work, left the group soon after the end of the play's London run. With this line up the band began working on their third album, attempting to use their considerable talents to the full and overcome the problems that had limited their previous work. The result, Alright Jack (1985),

1080-509: A similar style, all played on a combination of electric instruments including Swarbrick's amplified fiddle, setting the template for British folk rock. The rapid expansion of British folk rock that followed in the wake of Liege & Lief in the 1970s came mainly from three sources. First were existing folk performers who now 'electrified', including Mr. Fox , formed around the acoustic duo Bob and Carole Pegg, and Pentangle, who having previously recorded largely without electrification, produced

1152-471: A smaller acoustic outfit that could play the still extensive network of folk clubs and other smaller venues. This move was also significant in indicating the way in which electric folk personnel had become assimilated into the folk revival. Almost all the members of Fairport Convention have toured the folk club circuit solo or in smaller units and the line up at Cropredy includes as many acoustic acts as electric. In 1980, Steeleye Span's Sails of Silver took

1224-492: Is Ritchie Blackmore with Blackmore's Night . Initially Celtic rock replicated electric folk, but naturally replaced the element of English traditional music with its own folk music. It was rapidly evident in all areas of the Celtic nations and regions surrounding England, as Ireland , Scotland , Isle of Man , Wales , Cornwall , and Brittany all saw the adoption and adaptation of the electric folk model. Through at least

1296-529: Is an English musician, playing free reed instruments such as the accordion and concertina and performing English folk songs and tunes. John Kirkpatrick was born in Chiswick , London , England. As a child he sang in the choir and played piano. In 1959, he joined the Hammersmith Morris Men, in the second week of their existence, beginning a career-long love of folk music. In 1970, he became

1368-844: Is highly regarded . Harris sang and played oboe and hammered dulcimer , an unusual combination. In 1974, Kirkpatrick and Hutchings produced a themed album The Compleat Dancing Master , a history of English country dancing. In 1976, he teamed up with Carthy for Plain Capers , a collection of morris dance tunes. In 2009, he appeared in the BBC series, Victorian Farm , which was set in Acton Scott in Shropshire, performing traditional country songs such as " The Farmer's Boy". In 1977, Steeleye Span recruited both Kirkpatrick and Carthy, partly to replace fiddler Peter Knight. Kirkpatrick appearing on

1440-432: Is not to say that all the proponents of electric folk totally abandoned American material, or that it would not be represented in their own compositions, but their work would be characterised by the use of traditional English songs and tunes and the creation of new songs in that style, using the format and instruments of a rock band with the occasional addition of more traditional instruments. The result of this hybridisation

1512-486: The Cropredy Festival ("Fairport's Cropredy Convention") which remains (in 2022) a mainstay of the U.K. summer festival calendar and regularly attracts up to 20,000 attendees, by no means all of whom are Fairport Convention fans. When the band reformed in 1985 they were able to embark on increasingly lengthy and successful tours and produce a series of highly regarded albums. The reason for this recording revival

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1584-838: The National Theatre Company's stage show Lark Rise to Candleford together with Carthy and trumpeter Howard Evans. Prior to this the use of brass instruments in English folk music was a rare event, but all three had found it thrilling and a couple of years later formed Brass Monkey with Martin Brinsford from the Old Swan Band . The group is an occasional gathering rather than a fixed company. Roy Bailey , like Leon Rosselson has frequently recorded songs of social commentary, frequently on an anti-war theme. He has made several records with Roy Bailey, as well as in

1656-467: The Old Swan Band ). They made two albums: a live album "Force of Habit" containing many of Kirkpatrick's arrangements of Morris tunes, plus other material from his back catalogue, plus a studio album "Welcome To Hell" featuring new material. Since 1993, Kirkpatrick has recorded seven solo albums. He often unearths obscure English tunes and songs from folk ceremonies. Recently he has started to explore Balkan and Hungarian dance tunes. He has produced one of

1728-501: The Strawbs who developed from a bluegrass band into a "progressive Byrds" band by 1967. However, none provided a sustained or much emulated effort in this direction. Also products of the folk club circuit were Sandy Denny who joined Fairport Convention as a singer in 1968 and Dave Swarbrick , a fiddle player and session musician who reacted positively to the electric music he encountered while working with Fairport in 1969. The result

1800-472: The 'English' genre of folk tunes prevalent in the other popular bands, Five Hand Reel performed Scots and Irish songs and won Melody Maker ' s "Folk Album of the Year" in 1975. Second were groupings created directly by the members or former members of Fairport Convention, which can be seen as the nexus from which a family of organisations or performers emerged. Sandy Denny's short-lived group Fotheringay

1872-595: The 1980s Home Service , whose third album Alright Jack (1985) is often seen as representing another artistic highpoint for the genre. A much smaller group of English bands were formed in emulation of existing folk rock bands. Most often the model seems to have been Steeleye Span, as it was for the Cambridge group Spriguns of Tolgus , the Northumbrian band Hedgehog Pie and the Oyster Band , who started as

1944-540: The American folk rock boom, such as " Nowhere Man " and " If I Needed Someone ". During this period, a number of electric bands began to play rock versions of folk songs and folk musicians used electric musical instruments to play their own songs, including Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in the summer of 1965. Folk rock became an important genre among emerging English bands, particularly those in

2016-416: The American model of folk rock electrification from about 1965 now adopted it, most obviously Pentangle, Strawbs and acoustic duo Tyrannosaurus Rex which became the electric combo T-Rex. It also pushed progressive folk towards more traditional material. Acoustic performers Dando Shaft and Amazing Blondel , both beginning about this time, are examples of this trend. Examples of bands that remained firmly on

2088-546: The Ballads and Blues Club in 1953. These clubs were usually urban in location, but the songs sung in them often hearkened back to a rural pre-industrial past. In many ways this was the adoption of abandoned popular music by the middle classes. By the mid-1960s there were probably over 300 folk clubs in Britain, providing an important circuit for acts that performed traditional songs and tunes acoustically, where they could sustain

2160-533: The Baltic folk music of Skyforger and the Scandinavian folk music of Korpiklaani . In Germany this trend is more closely associated with the neo-medieval music known as medieval metal . Fairport's Cropredy Convention (previously Cropredy Festival ) has been held every year since 1980 near Cropredy , a village five miles north of Banbury , Oxfordshire and attracts up to 20,000 fans. It remains one of

2232-569: The Californian band the Byrds , who began playing folk-influenced material and Bob Dylan compositions with rock instrumentation. The Byrds' recording of Dylan's " Mr. Tambourine Man " was released in April 1965 and reached #1 on the U.S. and UK singles charts, setting off the mid-1960s folk rock movement. The Beatles' late 1965 album, Rubber Soul , contained a number of songs influenced by

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2304-786: The Cambridge Folk Festival and their transmission on the BBC TV programme A Little Night Music . Bass player Malcolm Bennett then left the band to work as Musical Director of the National Theatre's production of Aeschylus' Oresteia and was replaced by Jon Davie. Further recording was delayed by their return to the National Theatre as a supporting band. Having been joined by keyboard player Steve King while recording, among considerable expectations, they released their eponymous first album in 1984. The album made good use of their two experienced songwriters, Tams and Caddick, and

2376-487: The Incredible String Band , Pentangle , Strawbs , Nick Drake , Roy Harper , John Martyn and the original Tyrannosaurus Rex . Some of this, particularly the Incredible String Band, has been seen as developing into the further subgenre of psych or psychedelic folk . The advent of electric folk had profound effects on this developing strand of the folk genre. First, many existing acts, having avoided

2448-678: The London club scene towards the end of the 1960s. The skiffle movement, to which many English musicians, including the Beatles, owed their origins as performers, meant that they were already familiar with American folk music As they emulated the guitar and drum based format that had crystallised as the norm for rock music, these groups often turned to American folk and folk rock as the focus of their sound and inspiration. Among these groups from 1967 were Fairport Convention , who had enjoyed some modest mainstream success with three albums of material that

2520-541: The Oyster Band (latterly Oysterband), an increasingly heavy and politically aware folk rock unit who produced some of the best work in the genre in the 1980s and 1990s, merging into the developing folk punk and independent scenes. For a time electric folk threatened to break through to the mainstream, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s when Steeleye Span had a Christmas Top 20 hit single ("Gaudete") in 1973 and another Top 5 hit in 1975 (" All Around My Hat "). The album of

2592-483: The agenda for future German electric folk. In Brittany, as part of the Celtic rock movement, medieval music was focused on by bands like Ripaille from 1977 and Saga de Ragnar Lodbrock from 1979. However, by the end of the 1970s almost all of these performers had either disbanded or moved, like Gentle Giant and Gryphon, into the developing area of progressive rock . One remaining but notable exponent of medieval folk rock

2664-561: The albums Storm Force Ten and Live at Last ; in concert with them, he would perform solo morris dances. In the same period, Kirkpatrick released two albums as a duo with Sue Harris. He became part of Richard Thompson's backing band in 1975. This brought him such publicity that he was in heavy demand as a session musician. He recorded with Pere Ubu , Viv Stanshall , Jack the Lad , Gerry Rafferty , Maddy Prior and others. In 1980 he released his only single, "Jogging Along with My Reindeer". Two more albums with Sue Harris appeared in 1981, but

2736-627: The arranging talents in the group for a mixture of original songs and traditional tunes. The result was favourably reviewed, but suffered in retrospect from the fragmented nature of the recording process among their busy schedules, leading to a lack of spontaneity. Theatre productions continued to dominate the group's existence, particularly Brydon’s trilogy based on the Wakefield cycle of mystery plays known as The Mysteries . Augmented by other musicians, including Linda Thompson on vocals and Andy Findon on saxophone, clarinet and flutes, they released

2808-570: The border between progressive folk and progressive rock are the short lived Comus and, more successfully, Renaissance , who combined folk and rock with elements of classical music . While progressive folk as a genre continued into the late 1960s, it was overshadowed by electric folk and progressive rock, arguably, later to emerge in a new form. From about 1970 a number of performers inspired by electric folk, particularly in England, Germany and Brittany, adopted medieval and renaissance music as

2880-417: The constant touring, as a duo and as part of other groups, was putting a strain on the marriage. They had four sons together, but parted in the mid 1980s. In 1988, he and Sue published Opus Pocus , a collection of many of their own compositions from the previous 20 years, and a selection of some of the (then) more obscure traditional English tunes which had influenced them. In 1979, Kirkpatrick had appeared in

2952-546: The distinction of being the only person ever to be invited to do guest vocals on a Led Zeppelin album. These influences would also appear on later albums, but reduced as the band returned to a hard rock sound from Presence (1976) onwards. As Led Zeppelin moved away from electric folk, another long term survivor of the British blues movement, Jethro Tull, began to move towards it. Ian Anderson had produced Steeleye Span's album Now We Are Six in 1974 and first demonstrated

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3024-401: The early 1950s, it also attempted to produce a distinctively English music that was an alternative to the American dominance of popular culture , which was, as they saw it, displacing the traditional music of an increasingly urbanised and industrialised working class. Most important among their responses were the foundation of folk clubs in major towns, starting with London where MacColl began

3096-448: The first half of the 1970s, as Celtic rock held close to folk roots, with its repertoire drawing heavily on traditional Celtic fiddle and harp tunes and even traditional vocal styles, but making use of rock band levels of amplification and percussion it can be considered part of the electric folk movement. However, as it developed into new derivatives and hybrids, including Celtic punk , Celtic metal , and other sorts of Celtic fusion ,

3168-464: The first two studio albums. Current: Past: Studio albums: Live albums: Collaborations: British folk rock British folk rock was taken up and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany , Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man , to produce Celtic rock and its derivatives, and has been influential in countries with close cultural connections to Britain. It gave rise to

3240-546: The form of erotic folk ballads , much suited to Anderson's song writing interests. Two more albums followed in a similar vein: Heavy Horses (1978) and Stormwatch (1979) to form a loose folk rock trilogy, before Anderson moved into more electronic territory at the beginning of the 1980s. Ironically it was at this point that Dave Pegg of Fairport Convention would be the first of several members of that band to join Jethro Tull. Progressive folk developed in Britain in

3312-489: The genre of folk punk . By the 1980s the genre was in steep decline in popularity, but survived and revived in significance, partly merging with the rock music and folk music cultures from which it originated. Some commentators have found a distinction in some British folk rock, where the musicians are playing traditional folk music with electric instruments rather than merging rock and folk music, and they distinguish this form of playing by calling it "electric folk". Though

3384-497: The initial electric folk pattern began to dissipate. In the mid-1980s a new rebirth of English folk began, this time fusing folk forms with energy and political aggression derived from punk rock. Leaders included The Men They Couldn't Hang , Oysterband , Billy Bragg and The Pogues . Folk dance music also became popular in the 1980s, with the English Country Blues Band and Tiger Moth. The decade later saw

3456-455: The key events in the UK folk festival calendar. After holding a successful open-air concert at Kentwell Hall , Suffolk in 2005, Steeleye Span decided to hold their own annual festival, known as Spanfest. Other, more traditional, folk festivals (Shrewsbury, Towersey, Cambridge and Sidmouth, to name but four) now routinely host performances by exponents of the folk-rock genre. When English bands of

3528-502: The late 1960s and early 1970s defined themselves as 'electric folk' they were making a distinction with the already existing 'folk rock'. Folk rock was (to them) what they had already been producing: American or American style singer-songwriter material played on rock instruments, as undertaken by Bob Dylan and the Byrds from 1965. They drew the distinction because they were focusing on indigenous (in this case English) songs and tunes. This

3600-541: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. The second revival in the period after the Second World War , built on this work and followed a similar movement in America, to which it was connected by individuals like Alan Lomax , who had fled to England in the era of McCarthyism . Like the American revival, it was often overtly left wing in its politics, but, led by such figures as Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd from

3672-589: The merging of folk and rock music came from several sources, it is widely regarded that the success of " The House of the Rising Sun " by British band the Animals in 1964 was a catalyst, prompting Bob Dylan to go electric . In the same year, the Beatles began incorporating overt folk influences into their music, most noticeably on the song " I'm a Loser " from their Beatles for Sale album. The Beatles and other British Invasion bands, in turn, influenced

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3744-434: The mid-1960s partly as an attempt to elevate the artistic quality of the folk genre, but also as a response to diverse influences, often combining acoustic folk instruments with jazz , blues and world music . As a result, it was already established in Britain, albeit a difficult to define and varied subgenre, before the advent of electric folk at the end of the 1960s. It can be seen as including performers such as Donovan ,

3816-545: The nadir of electric folk, when, in contrast to the mid-1970s only the Albion Band (with the associated Home Service) and the Oysterband remained as major exponents of the genre and this was perhaps their least productive period , although in part, at least, this was due to lack of major record company interest in the genre. Folk-rock has never been a major revenue earner for record companies, even in its 1970s heyday. As

3888-494: The old fashioned folk musicians of the preceding generation. All popular music trends have a generational problem as their audiences grow and might not be replaced, but for folk rock the discontinuity was very acute. One result was a further hybridisation with the development of folk punk among younger acts in the later 1970s, some of which, like the Pogues and The Levellers , achieved some mainstream success. The early 1980s were

3960-454: The only teaching videos for English (D/G) melodeon , also on DVD. A further teaching resource is his 2003 book of traditional tunes, English Choice, and two accompanying CDs. He is remarried. One of his sons, Benji Kirkpatrick , is a member of Faustus , a former member of Bellowhead and Magpie Lane , and has recorded as a solo guitarist. He has succeeded his father as a member of Steeleye Span . All four of his sons do morris dancing. As

4032-506: The parent band. The original line-up was: John Tams (vocals, melodeon), Bill Caddick (vocals, guitar, dobro), Graeme Taylor (vocals, guitar), Michael Gregory (drums), Roger Williams (trombone, tuba), Howard Evans (trumpet), Colin Rae (trumpet) and Malcolm Bennett (bass). The large group was somewhat unwieldy and complicated by other projects, including the fact that both Evans and Williams were also members of Brass Monkey . Rae soon left and

4104-407: The remaining members gradually moved on to other projects. They reunited, without Tams, in 1991 to contribute to the charity compilation All Through the Year and with Caddick toured the UK, recordings of which were released as Wild Life (1995), but they disbanded soon after. In 2011, it was announced that Home Service were reuniting for live performances. The reunion was taking place to promote

4176-476: The remaining members initially chose the name 'The First Eleven' and then switched to Home Service, which had both associations of Britishness/Englishness and of a bygone world in the defunct BBC Home Service radio station. In 1982, two tracks from what was initially intended as a demo session were released as a single, "Doing The Inglish", with the B-side "Bramsley", designed to accompany the group's appearance at

4248-497: The same name was their most commercially successful, reaching no. 5 in the UK album chart in the same year. By comparison Fairport Convention released few singles and made very little impact on the British charts, although their albums sold well in the early 1970s. Liege & Lief reached no. 17 in 1969 and a later album, Angel Delight made the Top 10 in 1971. Most of their career, from that point until they initially disbanded in 1979,

4320-478: The unpromising Fiddler's Dram in 1978. Fiddler's Dram were often dismissed as "one hit wonders" for their single "Day Trip to Bangor", which peaked at no 3 in the UK and for their clear status as "Steeleye Span soundalikes". What was remarkable is that they proved to have a singer-songwriter of genuine talent in Cathy Lesurf , and after she had left for the Albion Band in 1980 the remaining members regrouped as

4392-469: The use of reggae with English folk music by the band Edward II & the Red Hot Polkas , especially on their seminal Let's Polkasteady from 1987. In a process strikingly similar to the origins of electric folk in the 1960s, the English thrash metal band Skyclad added violins from a session musician on several tracks for their 1990 début album The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth . When this

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4464-502: Was an exchange of specific features drawn from traditional music and rock music. These have been defined as including: Traditional music : Rock music : Not all of these features are found in every song. For example, electric folk groups, while predominantly using traditional material as their source for lyrics and tunes, occasionally write their own (much as traditional musicians do). John Kirkpatrick (musician) John Michael Kirkpatrick MBE (born 8 August 1947)

4536-528: Was an expert player of melodeon , Anglo concertina , and button accordion . Ashley Hutchings' project Battle of the Field floundered when the Albion Country Band broke up. They had recorded not quite enough material for an album. Kirkpatrick had appeared on several of the tracks with Martin Carthy and offered to record two extra tracks with his wife in 1973. It was not released until 1976 but

4608-467: Was an extended interpretation of the song " A Sailor's Life ", which was released on their album Unhalfbricking . This encounter sparked the interest of Ashley Hutchings who began research in the English Folk Dance and Song Society 's library; the result was the band's seminal Liege & Lief (1969) which combined traditional songs and tunes with some written by members of the band in

4680-447: Was built around an arrangement of six folk songs by Percy Grainger . There were also three other traditional tunes, but the most striking element of the album were Tams' compositions, which bracketed the traditional material on both sides, including the title track, the apocalyptic and uplifting "Sorrow/Babylon" and the haunting "Scarecrow". Alright Jack was the group's greatest achievement and almost their last. Tams left soon after and

4752-631: Was first evident in the recording of " Gallows Pole " a traditional ballad on Led Zeppelin III (1970), which stands out among their usual output of blues orientated rock. At this time they also wrote the ballad " Poor Tom " which would surface on Coda (1982). It is more subtly manifested in their most famous album Led Zeppelin IV (1971), which contained elements of both American folk rock and English electric folk on ' Stairway to Heaven ' and most obviously on ' The Battle of Evermore ', on which Sandy Denny had

4824-723: Was formed out of members of the Albion Band, who had participated in recording Rise Up Like the Sun (1978). Their establishment was partly out of the confusion caused by line-up changes when the Albion Band were playing as, in effect, a house band in Bill Bryden 's National Theatre productions in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Lark Rise to Candleford . Members of the group took part in an adaptation of Michael Herr 's Dispatches without band leader Ashley Hutchings. In late 1980, eight members began to rehearse together in Southwark, London and had soon splintered off from

4896-410: Was largely American in origin or style, before a radical change of direction in 1969 with their album Liege & Lief , which came out of the encounter between American inspired folk rock and the products of the English folk revival . The first English folk music revival had seen a huge effort to record and archive traditional English music by figures such as Cecil Sharp and Vaughan Williams in

4968-429: Was one of declining profile and sales. The same was generally true of other electric folk outfits. The late 1970s and early 1980s were a time to either abandon the genre or fight a losing struggle for survival. The reason is often said to be the rise of punk rock , which reached a peak in 1977. It changed the ethos of popular music, overturning certainties about musicianship and songwriting and had no greater target than

5040-429: Was one of these and Steeleye Span was another, the latter formed as a traditionally focussed, but essentially electric outfit, by Ashley Hutchings after his departure from Fairport in late 1969. He left Steeleye Span after three albums and eventually formed the Albion Country Band , later the Albion Band, which broke up in 2002. The Albion Band in turn spawned one of the most musically talented British folk rock groups of

5112-400: Was partly because they abandoned the mainstream record business, instead focusing on growing their own audience and producing records independently on their own labels ( Woodworm and Matty Grooves ), ironically a development which the punk and post-punk era had helped to accelerate. The Albion Band survived initially by becoming involved in theatre productions and, from 1993, by downsizing to

5184-554: Was well received they adopted a full-time fiddle player and moved towards a signature folk and jig style leading them to be credited as the pioneers of folk metal. This directly inspired the Dublin-based band Cruachan to use traditional Irish music in creating the Celtic metal subgenre. Attempts have been made elsewhere to replicate this process with examples ranging from the Middle Eastern folk music of Orphaned Land ,

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