Tuesday, December 29, 2009

TIM HART of Steeleye Span dies December 24th



'Twas the night before Christmas, and among the creatures not stirring...Tim Hart.
Fortunately friends and family had time to come to terms with this, as the Steeleye Span founder had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer exactly a year ago.
Steeleye was one of the best bands for traditional "Olde England" music with a rock angle, and their albums are prominent on any shelf that would also contain discs from Renaissance, Horslips, Jethro Tull, or Pentangle.
The band's core, Tim and vocalist Maddy Prior, actually began their career as a duo singing "Folk Songs of Olde England" (two volumes).
Following their initial success with Steeleye, Tim and Maddy returned to unfinished business and recorded yet another duo album, "Summer Solstice," which featured them together but also doing solo turns. One of Tim's is in the download below: "Dancing at Whitsun," a charming showcase for his talents. He would officially begin his solo career eight years later in 1979, and continue until health problems forced him off stage and into the more sedate worlds of writing and photography.
"Steeleye Span" continued and the current line-up is Maddy Prior fronting the band with Peter Knight, Rick Kemp Ken Nicol and Liam Genockey on drums. Tim rarely sang in public in the past 15 years, but thrilled fans by appearing with Maddy Prior in 2008 on BBC's "Electric Proms."


TIM HART "Dancing at Whitsun"

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