Spriguns of Tolgus (aka Spriguns) were a
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 ...
group formed in 1972. They managed to obtain a record deal with a major label and the attention of some significant figures in the folk rock world. They produced four albums with growing originality and recognition but were unable to achieve mainstream success and disbanded in 1978. Their lead singer, Mandy Morton, continued her solo career in Scandinavia and the band have now obtained a cult following.
History
Origins
Mike and Mandy Morton formed Spriguns of Tolgus as an acoustic duo at a folk night at the Anchor pub in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, England, in 1972.
They took the name "Spriguns" from a malignant Cornish
pixie and
Tolgus from a tin mine in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
.
Initially the band relied on traditional songs, particularly ballads, from England, Scotland and Ireland and were similar in sound to
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 ...
.
The Mortons, with Mandy on vocals and Mike on bass, were joined by Rick Thomas (fiddle) and Chris Russon (electric guitar),
[Martin C. Strong, ''The Great Folk Discography: Vol.1 - Pioneers and Early Legends'', Polygon, 2010, , pp.540-541] producing soft-focus electric folk on a self-financed tape recording, ''Rowdy, Dowdy Day'' (1974). This drew them to the attention of Steeleye Span's
Tim Hart, who produced their first vinyl album, ''Jack with a Feather'' (1975), contributing the song "Seamus the Showman", beside traditional material such as the
Child Ballads's "Flodden Field" and "
The Twa Magicians
"The Twa Magicians", "The Two Magicians", "The Lady and the Blacksmith", or "The Coal Black Smith" (Roud 1350, Child 44) is a British folk song. It first appears in print in 1828 in two sources, Peter Buchan's ''Ancient Ballads and Songs of the N ...
" (the last of which Steeleye Span had recorded the year before) and the Irish songs "Let No Man Steal Your Thyme" and "
Curragh of Kildare
The Curragh ( ; ga, An Currach ) is a flat open plain of almost of common land in County Kildare. This area is well known for Irish horse breeding and training. The Irish National Stud is located on the edge of Kildare town, beside the ...
".
The album, despite a very short run of pressings, together with Hart's involvement, helped increase the band's profile sufficiently to gain attention from a major label.
Decca albums: 1976-77
In 1976 they signed with
Decca Decca may refer to:
Music
* Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label
* Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group
* Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label
* Decca Studios, a recording facility in We ...
,
shortened their name to Spriguns and recruited a new band of Dick Powell (keyboards), Tom Ling (fiddle), and Chris Woodcock (drums), which gave them a fuller and rockier sound. The resulting album ''Revel, Weird & Wild'' (1976), with
B. J. Cole
Brian John Cole is an English pedal steel guitarist, who has long been active as a session and solo musician. Coming to prominence in the early 1970s with the band Cochise, Cole has played in many styles, ranging from mainstream pop and rock to ...
on
pedal steel,
was again produced by Tim Hart.
It relied exclusively on material penned by the band, particularly by Mandy Morton, but many of these were reworkings of traditional material.
For the next album ''Time Will Pass'' (1977) only Powell and Ling were retained and Australians Wayne Morrison (guitar) and Dennis Dunstan (drums) were recruited.
This was a relatively lavish attempt to break through into the mainstream, with orchestral arrangements undertaken by
Robert Kirby, who had worked with
Nick Drake
Nicholas Rodney Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He did not find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work gradually achieved wider notice and recognit ...
and the
Strawbs
Strawbs (or The Strawbs) are an English rock band founded in 1964 as the Strawberry Hill Boys. The band started out as a bluegrass group, but eventually moved on to other styles such as folk rock and progressive rock.
They are best known fo ...
, and production by Sandy Roberton, who had overseen Steeleye Span's early folk albums. The band now sounded very much like a conventional rock outfit with folk overtones and Mandy Morton was the only songwriter.
''Magic Lady''
The Mortons left Decca in 1977 for reasons that remain unclear and established their own label, Banshee Records, in 1978. A new band was formed, retaining Tom Ling but adding Byron Giles (guitar) and Alex Cooper (drums, later of
Katrina And The Waves
Katrina and the Waves were a British rock band widely known for the 1985 hit " Walking on Sunshine". They also won the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Love Shine a Light".
History Pre-history (1975–1980)
The band's earliest inc ...
). Mandy Morton became the group's focus and their last album under the name Spriguns was ''Magic Lady'' (1978), credited to ‘Mandy Morton and Spriguns’. The album's title was a tribute to
Sandy Denny
Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny (6 January 1947 – 21 April 1978) was an English singer who was lead singer of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention. She has been described as "the pre-eminent British folk rock singer".
After briefly w ...
, who died during recording and as a result the content was similar in style to Denny's solo work. It was recorded at Spaceward Studios, produced by Mike Kemp and benefited from guest appearances by several respected figures in the electric folk world, including a return for Tim Hart on dulcimer and backing vocals and guitar work from former
Gryphon instrumentalist
Graeme Taylor. This last album is generally considered the finest work the band produced.
After Spriguns
In 1979, Mandy Morton signed for
Polydor
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...
Scandinavia,
gradually moving away from her folk roots and, in the 1980s, touring with a conventional rock band. She has said that, following the decline in popularity of folk music in the UK, "we discovered after we’d been offered a residency in Oslo for the summer in 78 that there was a whole new world for us in Scandinavia. They were about three or four years behind the music scene in England. Therefore, they were still enjoying the hippie and progressive folk rock music, and so we toured Norway, Denmark and in Sweden. It felt like a rebirth of the band, rather than us sort of falling down like an awful lot of the bands did in this country".
She produced the album ''Sea Of Storms'' (1979) before Mike and Mandy split and Mike returned to Cambridge, where he died unexpectedly in his forties in 1995.
After producing ''Valley Of Light'' for Banshee in 1983, Mandy returned to England to work for
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Cambridgeshire.
It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at the Cambridge Business Park on Cowley Road in Cambridge.
According to ...
in 1986. Dick Powell is the leader of Cambridge band The Melodybeats, and is writing songs and poetry and short stories and released a CD of songs about Cambridge in 2018. The CD featured local artistes and was called ''Cambridge Skies'' and can be found on eBay under that title.
Tom Ling plays in Cambridge bands. Wayne Morrison and Dennis Dunstan are back home in Australia having fleetingly lived in California where Dennis worked for
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British-American rock band, formed in London in 1967. Fleetwood Mac were founded by guitarist Peter Green, drummer Mick Fleetwood and guitarist Jeremy Spencer, before bassist John McVie joined the line-up for their epony ...
for some time as Head of Security.
Mandy Morton writes the ''No.2 Feline Detective Agency'' series and lives in Cambridge and Cornwall with her partner, the novelist
Nicola Upson
Nicola Jane Upson (born 1970) is a British novelist, known for a series of crime novels featuring a fictional version of Josephine Tey as the heroine and detective.
Upson was born in Suffolk, England in 1970, has a bachelor's degree in English fr ...
.
Style and significance
Mandy Morton's song writing and fey laid-back singing was central to the sound of the band. Initially they seemed to be a clone of
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 ...
, but the greater experimentation, production values and confidence of the later work, in which Mandy Morton began to produce her own material, is closer to bands like
Trees or
Mellow Candle
Mellow Candle were a progressive folk rock band. Principally Irish, the members were also young, Clodagh Simonds being only 15 and Alison Bools (later O'Donnell) and Maria White 16, and still at school, at the time of their first single, "Fee ...
in style, relying on long guitar solos, similar to those of some progressive rock bands. The material was often dark in nature, focusing on black magic, war and death, which prefigured the obsessions of some later
dark wave bands. Their rare albums became particularly sought after by record collectors and began to be re-released as CDs from the 1990s.
Band members
Spriguns of Tolgus: original line-up
*Mandy Morton (vocals, 12 string guitar, dulcimer, bongos)
*Mike Morton (bass guitar, vocals)
*Chris Russon (electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin, 12 string guitar)
*Rick Thomas (vocals, acoustic guitar, mandolin, dulcimer)
Spriguns: later members
*Thom Ling (electric and acoustic violins, harpsichord)
*Dick Powell (electric guitar, keyboards, vocals)
*Chris Woodcock (drums)
*
B. J. Cole
Brian John Cole is an English pedal steel guitarist, who has long been active as a session and solo musician. Coming to prominence in the early 1970s with the band Cochise, Cole has played in many styles, ranging from mainstream pop and rock to ...
(pedal steel)
*Dennis Dunstan (drums)
*Wayne Morrison (lead guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin and vocals)
*Alex Cooper (drums and percussion)
*Byron Giles (electric and acoustic guitars, vocals)
*Lea Nicholson (concertina)
*Dominic Green (drums)
*Mark Boettcher (electric guitar, vocals)
*Vince De La Cruz (electric and acoustic guitars, bass, vocals, later of
Katrina And The Waves
Katrina and the Waves were a British rock band widely known for the 1985 hit " Walking on Sunshine". They also won the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Love Shine a Light".
History Pre-history (1975–1980)
The band's earliest inc ...
)
Discography
Albums
*''Rowdy, Dowdy Day'' (Private pressing, 1974) (tape)
*''Jack With A Feather'' (Alida Star, 1975)
*''Revel, Weird & Wild'' (Decca, 1976)
*''Time Will Pass'' (Decca, 1977)
*''Magic Lady'' (Banshee, 1978)
Mandy Morton
*''Sea of Storms'' (Polydor, 1979)
*''Valley of Light'' (Banshee, 1983)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spriguns Of Tolgus
British folk rock groups