Fairport may have invented the electric English folk song, but Steeleye Span took the concept further, eschewing original material entirely for album after album of electrified traditional music. They added their own wrinkle - beautifully arranged full harmony singing, which enabled them to do some spectacular a cappella tracks. Steeleye's origins weren't so plugged-in, though. When bassist Ashley Hutchings left Fairport Convention, he wanted to explore pure folk music, rather than a folk-rock mix. He joined forces with two singing couples who were already established artists: Gay and Terry Woods, and Tim Hart and Maddy Prior. The first Steeleye Span album, 1970's Hark the Village Wait, presents traditional songs played acoustically, with minimal electric guitar and drums.

Gay and Terry left the group when the first album was completed, and Steeleye added two new members. Martin Carthy was and is one of the most highly respected musicians the British folk scene has ever produced. Though known for the subtlety and beauty of his acoustic guitar style, Carthy chose to play electic guitar in Steeleye, and play it loud. Violinist Peter Knight had a background in classical music and Irish folk. This electric (but drumless) edition of Steeleye made two albums, Please to See the King and Ten Man Mop (both 1971), and toured England in a play, Corunna, that had been written especially for them.

The next personnel change set the band's course decisively. Carthy and Hutchings left, and the core band of Hart, Prior and Knight were joined by two musicians with extensive rock backgrounds - guitarist Bob Johnson and bassist Rick Kemp (a drummer, Nigel Pegrum, joined a little later). Below the Salt (1972) was the first album that showed, not an electrified folk group, but an aggressive, experienced rock'n'roll band that happened to play folk songs. The album scored an unexpected hit single: "Gaudete", a medieval Latin chant sung a cappella. With a stable line-up, the band embarked on a remarkable and consistent series of albums, a stretch that ended with 1976's Rocket Cottage. After that, personnel changes of the sort that plagued Fairport began to affect Steeleye, and the band began to record and tour less frequently. Though the albums of the 1980's and 1990's (which began to feature original material) have their moments, the years 1972-1976 will always be known as Steeleye Span's glory years.

The current edition of Steeleye is the first to lack the band's greatest mainstay, vocalist Maddy Prior. Her replacement: Gay Woods, who left the band in 1970 only to rejoin it nearly thirty years later.

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