| Cogs, Wheels & Lovers | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Steeleye Span | ||||
| Released | October 2009 | |||
| Recorded | 2009 | |||
| Genre | British folk rock | |||
| Label | Park Records | |||
| Producer | Steeleye Span with Mark Ellis and Tony Poole | |||
| Steeleye Span chronology | ||||
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Cogs, Wheels & Lovers is the twenty-first studio album by British folk rock band Steeleye Span. It was released on 26 October 2009. [1] It is the band's fourth studio album to feature the line-up of Maddy Prior, Peter Knight, Rick Kemp, Ken Nicol and Liam Genockey.
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 success of "The House of the Rising Sun" by British band the Animals in 1964 was a catalyst, prompting Bob Dylan to "go electric", in which, like the Animals, he brought folk and rock music together, from which other musicians followed. In the same year, the Beatles began incorporating overt folk influences into their music, most noticeably on their Beatles for Sale album. The Beatles and other British Invasion bands, in turn, influenced the American band the Byrds, who released their recording of Dylan's "Mr Tambourine Man" in April 1965, setting off the mid-1960s American folk rock movement. A number of British groups, usually those associated with the British folk revival, moved into folk rock in the mid-1960s, including the Strawbs, Pentangle, and Fairport Convention.
Steeleye Span are an English folk rock band formed in 1969. Still active today, along with Fairport Convention, they are amongst the best known acts of the British folk revival, and were among the most commercially successful, thanks to their hit singles "Gaudete" and "All Around My Hat". They had four Top 40 albums and achieved a certified gold record with sales of "All Around My Hat".
Madelaine Edith "Maddy" Prior, MBE is an English folk singer, best known as the lead vocalist of Steeleye Span. She was born in Blackpool and moved to St Albans in her teens. Her father, Allan Prior, was co-creator of the police drama Z-Cars. She was married to Rick Kemp and their daughter Rose Kemp is also a singer. She was part of the singing duo 'Mac & Maddy' with Mac MacLeod. She then performed with Tim Hart and recorded two albums with him before they helped to found the group Steeleye Span in 1969. She left Steeleye Span in 1997 but returned in 2002 and has toured with them in 2008/9 and 2013. With June Tabor she was the singing duo Silly Sisters. She toured with the Carnival Band in 2007 and with Giles Lewin and Hannah James in 2012 and 2013. She has released singles and albums as a solo artist, with these bands and in several collaborations. She runs an Arts Centre called Stones Barn in Bewcastle in Cumbria which offers residential courses.
Contents
The songs on the album are entirely traditional pieces. As such, this album marks a return to the band's early pattern of recording modern arrangements of traditional songs, and marks a departure of its tendency, demonstrated since the early 1980s, of doing both traditional songs and songs they wrote themselves.
Cogs, Wheels and Lovers was the last album to feature guitarist Ken Nicol.
