Steeleye Span - Seven Hundred Elves (1974)
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- Опубликовано: 21 ноя 2008
- Looks like Viscount De L'Isle was as little into elves as myself in 1974. But fun to see early 70s cutting edge TV coverage and a youthful Ms. Prior again.
From: Penshurst Place, Kent 
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![RENAISSANCE - Ashes Are Burning [LIVE IN STUDIO] 1974 RARE](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/SykBbwU3JwY/mqdefault.jpg)
Get me a Time Lord with a Tardis and take me back to the days of Steeleye. Seen them a few times.... Maddy Prior has a voice and a half! and the arrangements are fantastic. I am from South Cumbria, we have woods, and i enjoy telling my nieces and nephews whilr driving through, to check windows, as elves are not a nice sort!
Marvellous Maddy Prior : What a beautiful voice!
This is a great version, and Maddy Prior is just fantastic.
My goodness---a long time ago. I remember it still...
I grew up listening (and singing) to Steeleye, me and my sister sitting there with my dad's treasured Vinyl collection. Maddy Priors voice and the lyrics...FAB. Seven hundred elves is my favourite song
Those were the days! Tasteful!
Wonderful, beautiful British eccentricity.
Met this band in the early 70s but knew their music from the beginning and brought them to my university. I’m not British per se but my heritage is Scot-English. Their music, with all the musicians that have come and gone, including Tim Hart, resonates with me and connects with me from the distant past. Steeleye Span’s music is evocative and somehow makes me bigger than I normally am.
Well said. Their music, always lifts my spirit to a higher plane. As cheesy as that sounds, there’s something really special about their delivery.
i now really regret not listening to this type of music when i was a teenager back in the 70's.
Like Cleopatra said , tis always better late than never .
My love for this band is something.
I love Maddy Prior. I love Steeleye Span.
Amazing band , amazing song . Remember seeing this on TV in the 70s . Just as good today .
I'd love to go back to 1974 when people seem to so much more civilized
I have heard this song a hundred times, but the skill that it took to make it is not apparent until we see the interaction of the band, very well done.
What do you expect, after felling the oak, felling the birch, felling the bloody beech and poplars? Elves are truly pissed!.
Happens every time I play Dwarf Fortress 🤨
Beautiful band, was into these guys way back. Thanks for posting.
Great song - very evocative of merrie England and well performed by a rather foxy young Ms prior!
American here-- love this stuff! :)! I wish we had more knowledge of bands like this here in the USA. Glad to have discovered them (basically today) :0
The Span at their peak. Such a rare clip from 1974. I think Ian Anderson was producing them by then.
thanks so much for posting this one!! Great live performance.
Most beautiful music ever.
just a wonderful wonderful talent band. They re amazing live. I just love em til it hurts.
I had this video in my head, today, as I went to partake of some ale in the self named "Elisabeth" wood. As I sat on a tree recently destroyed by the Winter storms, a juvenile Deer calmly walked by, looked at me, & just calmly walked away. No sign of any Elves, fortunately.
borgduck I think you'll find that the deer was an elf, in animal form :)
redcardinalist Now I want to back there!
borgduck
Well you might not, tricky things elves and faeries generally. Remember, they're not human in any way whatsoever. Best avoided all round.
If you do, remember the cardinal rules:-
1. Don't accept any offer to dance the night away in the faeries realm
2. Don't eat or drink anything of faerie origin
3. never look back ;)
redcardinalist 1. After a keg of ale I wouldn't be able to stop myself 2. See number one. If it's 100% & gets me tipsy.. 3. *Too late!* :(
Lovely to hear this again! a terrific version! Well done folks!
It's old, but gold!
Saw Steeleye span three years ago, Maddy’s voice was still still crystal clear.
Having been recommended the music of Steeleye Span for quite some time now (I'm a big Fairport Convention fan), this is the first piece of music I've listened to from them. Great performance.
Wonderful live performance!
I saw this Vinyl album at a record store I had gone into while high as hell yesterday, Today I searched the album name and was able to find this video. This band is awesome!
I graduated high school in 1974. So this video has some meaning to me. The lady singing has a beautiful voice plus it's a great song. I love this gal's outfit too--just makes for a gorgeous video.
i saw this line up of span in redcar cotham bowl in 1983, if i had one wish in life it would be to to go back to that night to relive it. the best band i ever saw live and a fantastic set, they were really on form. great crowd of people watching who all seemed to know the songs and loved a dance with maddy. do you remember? clare, manny, si, johnny, gord. love to you all
beautiful ...
Excellent-Health and Safety would throw a fit nowadays about that big fire right on the dancefloor...
great song
Love this. Thanks for postin. Would love to see more of this show...
Yes, fetch a Time Lord and a Tardis, some good ale and whatever the band was smoking...because I want to be transported back to that ancient, drafty, firelit castle and watch this live. My inner medieval/hippie/stoner self just had a massive geekgasm!
Long live the elves of old.
love
Those elves still know how to stir things up...
That's a lot of elves!
saw them last fall in chicago and for my money, maddy sounded just fine!
I saw the original two BBC TV series with Steeleye Span in the eraly 70s..... In 18 days we'll be at the last night of their Winter 2009 tour. Looking forward to that :)
i found this band only recently ,thanks to jethro tull and i felt instantly in love with mady´s voice.
Jethro tull ,wow, Mady's Prior ,you must be very young 😉
Maddy Prior has a voice of rapture!
Lovely
"In every nook he made a cross and all about the room
And off flew many a frightened elf back to his forest gloom
Some flew to the east, some flew to the west, some flew to the north away
And some flew down the deep ravine and there forever stay"
Tim Hart sadly left us far too soon. He began with Maddy Prior in small clubs in the folk scene, and progressed from traditional acoustic instruments the the electric folk rock style, adding musicians along the way. This is the classic lineup and IMHO, the best.
Agreed! It is wonderful to see and hear him doing those lovely harmonies with Maddy. Been listening to them for all these decades and never get tired of them.
Best video I've seen in ages.
Apparently this was part of a whole BBC series where Steeleye played at historic houses...wish they`d re-show the whole lot, if the tapes are still extant !
I want the guitarist's exact setup. Such a mean tone!
absolutely spell-binding!!
what a nice clean video from 74 wow
love it paul payton England x x
I've heard them play this song live too!
There were a band of travelling minstrels, several blokes and a maiden fair with raven hair. They couldn't afford a carriage or even a donkey so they just walked around with instruments in their hands. One time they saw Brian Jones sitting cross legged on a tree stump, playing an electric mandolin to a bunch of plaster gnomes including Roy Wood, Marc Bolan and David Bowie. They were hungry so Brian swapped his mandolin for a bag of magic jelly beans that a minstrel was holding. The minstrels walked on into the English twilight. By and by they came to the walls of a great castle where a Viscount was said to live. They were quite hungry themselves, and started seeing elves! The kindly Viscount invited them to perform at his dinner party in exchange for food and a possible record deal. They were led into a great hall with roasting pigs and lots of people sitting around, chewing gristle. The minstrel gallery was stacked with Marshall amps so they plugged in the mandolin and also an electric dulcimer which they had picked up along the way. But something strange happened whenever Maddy sang (for that was the name of the maiden fair with the raven hair), you could hear a kind of a legato sound from some kind of keyboard. Nobody had brought any keyboard instruments because they're too heavy to carry on foot. Eventually they saw Ian Stewart playing a reed organ behind a Marshall stack. He offered to be their roadie because he had a truck outside. They grabbed all the amps (which had belonged to the Rolling Stones before they went into exile). Somebody suggested they call themselves the Electric Elves but most people thought it was too corny. Then they remembered they hadn't eaten but Ian had some jelly beans in the truck.
I love this song - we play it
Great stuff
Love the tune and how they've arranged it, and love the lyrics and subject of the song... when I first heard this I sympathised with the farmer, being attacked by the 'foul and grim' elves... then when I listened more closely and read the lyrics I realised they only attacked him cos he chopped down their wood... they were defending their living space! What do you expect? The story may have been told from the point of view of the farmer but it's an environmentalist song without knowing it!
Punk and prog and folk exist as certainly as sand and glass and foliage. I'm here for tha Steeelyspan. Jolly smashing growing op in thet era.
That guitar break starting at 2:50 was inadvisable. OW!
mnemonyxx - only one question: Have you got more of that?
It´s so great to see them from the 1970s! :-)
Hell yes!
I like how elves have changed over time from something to be feared to something that helps Santa make toys
i luv maddy...
Seven Hundred Elves come out the wood? they have annuled our agreement!! Unpack the swords, we're going to war!
MartinK303 Seven Hundred Old Age Elves going by the audience. Who says time doesn't pass in the Faerie realm ;)
Maddy looks nice here a
nd the sound is just like the record
Tune, and somme of the lyrics are from the standard "John Barleycorn"
@TurtleDude1959 Can't choose between Maddy and Sandy, very different voices, I am really fond of both. Sandy's death is a great loss...
Ohhhhhhhhh............: )
The Lord, if that is him sitting there chewing gum, looks absolutely underwhelmed.
Nathan Kitteh yeah damned snot. Gov gen of oz. pommy shithead
Can you not tell the guy is chewing his dinner like everybody else... he probably felt embarrassed that the camera was on him while chewing .
00.24 the lord is proper zooming......he should be ,those elves have got his number....🧚♂️....
If this is a different episode to the only one that got shared here, it would be one of life's great mysteries and tragedies that you didn't share the rest.
Poor old Bob, he may indeed have been stoned, but he had eye problems, which may be all that's going on there.
It's a huge crime BBC don't even repeat these 2 series, or put 'em on ye olde DVD.....
I swear my rabbit was dancing..
Lord Dellile threw some party that night
@dickhalloran Yes, it was a great party which the years haven't served to cloud over in my memory.
Lord DeLyle didn't look fussed.
Anyone got the version of Edwin from this show?
Does anyone know if this great concert is available on DVD ?
I wasn't dissing prog. I couldn't, I'm a huge fan of King Crimson, Tull, and much of the stuff released between '68 and '77. All I was doing was pointing out that punk, at least in the UK, was in some ways a response to that, for want of a better word, elite scene. Prog was time, equipment, money intensive - Punk was D.I.Y. And that was something it shared with folk and trad - you could play music anywhere, anytime.
I love prog.
Wonderrful as always eh? guy's?
Generations from now, Punk will just be another variety of "folk", which happened to flourish for a while in the late 20th century.
A few songs from each genre may survive.
You would be surprised.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Respectfully differ. Generations from now, most of what is called folk music will be forgotten by all but a handful of traditionalists and archivists, a minority within a minority. But teenagers around the world will still be bopping up and down to I Wanna Be Sedated. Punk is the original folk.
cool..
Elves were big in the 70's.
I can't see that happening, and I'll explain why. Folk music, and traditional music, of every country tends to have real, clearly identifiable roots. I'll speak of Irish folk, as it's the folk/trad I know best. Right across the country, in every small village, in every town and city, you will hear today tunes that have been passed down generation to generation, century on century. Themes are reworked in later tunes, and new instruments added as they arrive.
But the tune is the tune. That's folk
:)
Elves? I crush them, devour them!
That's what his eyes say.
Steeleye Span has become a favorite of mine Wish I knew about them sooner Anyway was there a translation shift? Were these irate goblins as opposed to elves? Usually in folklore elves are mischievous not malicious...But who knows I would not want my neighborhood chopped down and altered either...
To quote Terry Pratchett:
"Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad."
Tok3n You may be correct and I thank you for Pratchett's verse...In line 6 there is a big jump from "terrific" to "terror" because that is not what I was taught/read about...For example, THE SHOEMAKER AND THE ELVES...The term "elfin" does not evoke terror like "goblin" or as Shakespeare said "goblin damned"...There was an article on Hollywood actresses about Audrey Hepburn, Leslie Caron, etc who were described as elfin... Leprechauns, gnomes, goblins and trolls were the bad ones...
However as I stated I would not want my neighborhood destroyed by a thoughtless human thing that wants to despoil the forest for fun and/or profit...
To be honest I just saw the opportunity to quote a bit of Pratchett. The word and concept of and Elf has been around for thousands of years. They used to be considered far more malevolent, however over time - through retelling in folklore and then in fairy stories and the like - our perception changed and softened. This happens with lots of things like this. Look at the changing meaning/concept of fairies. Terry Pratchett loved the history of folklore and researched it meticulously for the discworld books. Just one of the reason that they are so awesome and how he was able to make all the fictional races he wrote about so culturally rich and real.
Tok3n "Everything comes to he who waits"...It has been, at least 2 years, but thank you for answering my query and I will check Pratchett out...
Erlkönig. Not a nice guy.
yes they are fine. Always will be. They are Sasquatches. Whoa is me the farmer cried, the Elves will be my guest. So cool.
excellent Bass guitar !! Rick Kemp ?
I agree, Steely Dan rock!
@snugglehound To set the low bar so bands didn't have to try so hard to compete?
I like Sandy Denny, but she & Maddy Prior each did pretty different material. While Prior's earthy accent & siren contralto were perfect on electrified stuff like "700 Elves" or "Black Jack Davey", Denny's sweet & soulful soprano was ideal for dark songs like "Blackwaterside" & "Who Knows Where the Time Goes." Would swapping singers on any of those songs have worked as well? And naturally the "dying early" part (well over 30 years ago) always adds to that mystique, even with much less material.
@SnugglySara I wonder if she has broadband?
Another voice in the same tinbre was Mike Oldfiield's sister Sally
Lord De L'Isle doesn't seem as stoned as Bob Johnson . .
Was Nigel Pegrem the speaker?
IF I WERE AS STONED AS HIM I'D BE SEEING SEVEN HUNDRED ELVES
how baked is he