Steeleye Span-Please To See The King

This is their second release from 1971. With the departure of Gay and Terry Woods they added multi instrumentalist Peter Knight and Martin Carthy who was already a well known Folk singer as a solo artist. Not sure when I bought this, It’s a 1971 issue on Big Tree Records, but I know I had it in 1982 because a guy that lived below me in the apartment I was living at in Newark asked to borrow it one day and I didn’t get it back until the night before my wedding. I don’t like this one as much as their first but there are still some good songs on it. There is a re-recording of “The Blacksmith” from the first record with heavier bass and a fiddle solo by Knight. “Bedlam Boys”, about England’s famous lunatic asylum, starts out as a dirge sung by Maddy and Martin before becoming more up-tempo for the rest of the song. “Female Drummer” sung by Maddy is another good one although there are no drums played anywhere on this record. As their last record all songs are traditional. Unfortunately this record is in bad shape so it has to go.

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