Latest news with #SteeleyeSpan
South Wales Argus
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South Wales Argus
UK folk-rock band Steeleye Span set to perform in Newport
Steeleye Span will be playing at The Riverfront Theatre on Wednesday, May 7. Founded in 1969, the band is known for pioneering electric folk music and shaping the genre for more than 50 years. Their debut album, Hark! The Village Wait, set the stage for their unique sound. The band's latest release, The Green Man Collection, features tracks from recent albums and new versions of three classic songs. The title track, The Green Man, is a song by Bob Johnson, a member throughout the 70s, which was lost for 40 years. The song discusses climate change, a prescient topic for its time. The band's line-up for this tour includes founding member Maddy Prior, along with Liam Genockey, Julian Littman, Roger Carey, Andrew "Spud" Sinclair, and the newest addition, Athena Octavia. The band's upcoming album, Conflict, will be available exclusively during the tour. The concert is expected to be an exciting night for fans of the genre. Tickets can be purchased via the Newport Live website.
The Guardian
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Gigspanner Big Band: Turnstone review – an elegance unmatched in British folk
With six members, the Gigspanner Big Band is not particularly big, though their collective elan has a forceful presence unmatched in British folk: a little classical, a little jazzy, highly inventive while their material remains almost entirely traditional. Founded by fiddle player Peter Knight, once of Steeleye Span, the ensemble contains two duos and a trio as well as the full six piece. Knight plus guitarist Roger Flack and percussionist Sacha Trochet make the Gigspanner trio, with Hannah Martin (fiddle, vocals) and Phillip Henry (dobro, vocals) are duo Edgelarks, while John Spiers (concertina, vocals) often duos with Knight and is celebrated for the (truly) big band Bellowhead. Named after an inquisitive riverbank bird, this third album is their most accomplished. They bring a freewheeling but precise presence to songs like the 17th-century Suffolk Miracle and Child ballad Hind Horn, while Silver Dagger is dressed in anguish for its doomed lovers. There is a southern American hymn, What Wondrous Love, a gypsy reel, Betsy Williams, and a stately treatment of Stephen Foster's Hard Times Come Again No More. The variations of its multi-talented cast are part of its charm, though Knight's playing – by turns sprightly, yearning and melancholic – shines brightest. A faultless cavalcade.
