Nodding at AA Milne’s youngsters’s poetry e-book of the similar identify, 1974’s Now We Are Six was once Steeleye Span’s 6th LP, and the document which noticed their people cross people rock. When former Uriah Heep guy Nigel Pegrum left a Worcestershire commune to enroll in the drummerless Steeleye, their intricate sound were given a lot beefier.
“Once I auditioned, each one in every of Steeleye gave the look of a celebrity,” Pegrum unearths in sleeve notes for this good-looking reissue, flagging a glamour now not frequently related to people. “They had been lined in silver and turquoise Navajo jewelry and regarded 1,000,000 greenbacks.”
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Steeleye appeared like 1,000,000 greenbacks too. Brilliantly engineered by means of Robin Black, contemporary from running on Lou Reed’s Berlin, Now We Are Six is house to such Steeleye classics as Thomas The Rhymer and The Mooncoin Jig – the latter a exhibit for the wondrous mandolin and banjo taking part in of Peter Knight, as ace guitarist Bob Johnson (who died in December 2023) settles in to a scrumptious choogle.
This newly remastered reissue additionally reminds us of the majesty and readability of Maddy Prior’s voice. No person handles the folk-singing ornamentations referred to as ‘turns’ higher than Steeleye Span’s ace frontwoman.
Playfully, each the name monitor and the LP’s superfluous model of Twinkle Twinkle Little Megastar had been credited to The St Eleye (geddit?) Number one Faculty Junior Choir, although the faux-naïf vocals had been the paintings of Prior and her bandmates. The LP’s different curio, famously, is its model of Phil Spector’s To Know Him Is To Love Him, during which David Bowie performs first rate alto sax.
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“He did two takes and was once out of there in part an hour,” notes Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, who recruited Bowie for the consultation, and was once a “manufacturing guide” at the document.
This reissue additionally options 4 are living recordings drawn from February 1974 classes for BBC Radio 1’s The Bob Harris Display and Sounds Of The Nineteen Seventies. The variations of Two Magicians and Thomas The Rhymer, particularly, are magnificent.
Now We Are Six (fiftieth Anniversary Version) is on sale now by the use of Chrysalis.