Steeleye Span

Fifty-six years on and still going strong; Steeleye Span released their first album this decade in 2025. Conflict was a record of our times and contained a mix of original material and reworked traditional songs. Longtime vocalist Maddy Prior explains the story behind it and how she came to unleash her inner Tom Waits.

- Words: Mike Barnes Images: Jack Woodhams

“I think the world of music has changed enormously around us, but hasn’t changed much for us, because we’ve always ploughed our own furrow with very little reference to anybody else,” says Steeleye Span singer and founder member Maddy Prior, with regard to Conflict, the group’s first studio album in six years.

“Steeleye is a world of its own. We do get influenced by other stuff, but in a minimal way and only if people bring that influence in with them.”

Steeleye Span formed in 1969. They helped originate and define the golden age of UK folk rock, and in the 70s gave the genre its highest commercial profile with four UK Top 40 albums and two unlikely hit singles: in 1973 they reached No.14 in the UK with the a cappella 16th-century Christmas carol, Gaudete, and in 1975 the boisterous singalong All Around My Hat, produced by Womblemeister Mike Batt, peaked at No.5. They even starred in the BBC2 TV series Electric Folk in 1974 and ’75, for which they were filmed performing live in stately homes. National treasures, one might say.

They were used to playing universities, theatres and festivals in their home country, but in 1973 Steeleye Span were invited to tour the US supporting Jethro Tull. It was time to introduce a drummer into the band and Nigel Pegrum, formerly of UK proggers Gnidrolog, was drafted in with much learning to do.

“In three weeks we were playing [large arenas in North America],” Prior recalls. “We just laughed about it because in three years we’d gone from playing folk clubs to four nights at the LA Forum, which holds 17,000 people. It was bizarre. We loved it. I mean, we fought and got drunk and all that, but it was still a great time.”

Things have calmed down since then, of course, but Steeleye Span have remained in the folk-rock vanguard. Prior has described their shifting lineups as “like a bus with people getting on and off”, but since