''Live at Last'' is a

live album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by the

British folk rock British folk rock is a form of folk rock which developed in the United Kingdom from the mid 1960s, and was at its most significant in the 1970s. Though the merging of folk and rock music came from several sources, it is widely regarded that the ...

band

Steeleye Span Steeleye Span are a British folk rock band formed in 1969 in England by Fairport Convention bass player Ashley Hutchings and established London folk club duo Tim Hart and Maddy Prior. The band were part of the 1970s British folk revival, and we ...

. It is the first live album the band issued, after eight years of performing and releasing 10 studio albums. It was originally intended to be a farewell album. "This then is our eleventh and final album. Steeleye Span amicably disbanded five days after making this recording for reasons that are irrelevant here.” It is one of only two albums the band issued on which John Kirkpatrick played (not counting a later live reunion album, ''

The Journey The Journey may refer to: Film and television * ''The Journey'' (1942 film), or ''El viaje'', an Argentine film * ''The Journey'' (1959 film), an American drama starring Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner, and Jason Robards about the Hungarian Revoluti ...

''), making it one of only two albums to employ an accordion as a primary instrument. The album is also notable because only two of the tracks ("Saucy Sailor/Black Freighter" and "False Knight on the Road") were songs that the band had recorded before, so that most of the material on the album is essentially new material. The band went on to release a second live version of "The Maid and the Palmer" on ''The Journey''. The departure of Bob Johnson and Peter Knight and their replacement by

Martin Carthy Martin Carthy MBE (born 21 May 1941) is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and later artists such as ...

and Kirkpatrick for this album (and '' Storm Force Ten'') had taken the band away from its heavily amplified

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

sound of the mid-1970s, and back to the cutting edge

approach reminiscent of the band's origins. "The Maid and the Palmer" tells the story of a

palmer Palmer may refer to: People and fictional characters * Palmer (pilgrim), a medieval European pilgrim to the Holy Land * Palmer (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Palmer (surname), including a list of people and ...

(a pilgrim returning home from Jerusalem with a palm branch) who meets a woman washing clothes. He asks her for a cup of water, but she refuses. He comments that she would certainly give her lover a cup of water, and when she denies having a lover, he tells her that she is lying, and that she has borne nine children, all of whom she has killed and hidden. He condemns her to seven years as a stepping-stone, seven years as a clapper in a bell, and seven years of running as "an ape through Hell". Given the Palmer's supernatural powers, he may be Christ in disguise. "Hunting the Wren" is a version of the

Cutty Wren "The Cutty Wren" and its variants such as "The Hunting of the Wren" are traditional English folk songs. It is also the territorial song for the British overseas territory of Tristan da Cunha. The origins and meaning of the song are disputed. It i ...

tradition. On ''

Please to See the King ''Please to See the King'' is the second album by Steeleye Span, released in 1971. A major personnel change following their previous effort, '' Hark! The Village Wait'', brought about a substantial change in their overall sound, including a lac ...

'', the band explored this tradition with "The King", and on ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'', the band recorded "The Cutty Wren", another song about this tradition. The version of “ The False Knight on the Road” presented in this concert is notably different from the version recorded on ''

'' (1971). The ''Live at Last'' version is much expanded and features the use of odd (but effective) contrasting time signatures.

Track listing

Personnel

;Steeleye Span *Maddy Prior - vocals *Tim Hart - vocals, guitar *Martin Carthy - vocals, guitar *Rick Kemp - bass guitar, vocals *John Kirkpatrick - vocals, accordion *Nigel Pegrum - drums ;Technical *Mike Thompson - engineer *Scott "Colac" Thompson - concert sound engineer *Mike Thompson, Tim Hart - mixing

References

{{Authority control Steeleye Span albums 1978 live albums Chrysalis Records live albums