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Maddy

Maddy Prior

It may be true, as many complain, that we don't have, as many girl singers in Britain as we would like, but you've got to admit that the ones we have are pretty original. And with her hand-appliqued folktale skirt, her spoons playing, her step dancing, gaunt beauty and last but most important her unique voice, they don't come much more original than Maddy Prior.

But it's an originality that didn't come overnight. Her first official gig, as a kid “discovery” on the stage of the Blackpool Opera House at the age of eight, possibly didn’t contribute a great deal to her uniqueness.

But even if you come forward to her more recent origins in the St Albans folk scene, a lot of brown ale has flowed down a lot of folkie gullets since she first got going.

And there have been a lot of changes in the style and content of her singing since then.

Those days she didn't seem fated to be a big draw, even on the then limited folk club circuit. With her pale imitation Joan Baez - style voice. In fact the first people came to know of her was as one of the earliest folk roadies and probably one of the only female roadies in this or any other country.

She drove the excellent American duo, Sandy and Jeanie Darlington around the country for a while, and then did the same service for the blind, black American preaching blues man, the Rev. Gary Davis. She has a whole load of fascinating stories about that beautiful, irascible, ribald old man.

But although in later years she acquired reputation as one of our leading traditionalists, already it's easy to see that there were plenty of eclectic elements in her early career that fitted her to become one of the most successful exponents of the marriage of traditional folk and electric rock.

And already her voice was developing. If you play the songs she and Tim recorded for Tony Pike's TeePee label back in 1968 (and recently reissued) you have got to admit she has gone a very long way in the Past five years from the slightly better then average club singer she was by then. Only on "Maid That's Deep in Love" is there any hint of the incredible artistry that was to come.

She got the song from the singing of the Belfast tinker, Lal Smith, and she went on from there to be influenced by a number of Irish traditional singers, notably Brigid Tunney, mother of somewhat more well known Paddy, as well as the English gypsy, Queen Caroline Hughes.

It was from Brigid that she got "Prince Charlie Stuart" on "Please To See the King" and it's interesting to compare the way the two women sing it, for Maddy has never been a blind imitator of any other person's way of performing.

As she sang it, Bonnie Prince Charlie became more than just another contender for the throne, more what he probably was for all the women of the Highlands, a regal superstar with very powerful sexual overtones, which are entirely missing from Mrs Tunney's version.

Of late, her singing style has been developing still further, probably as a result of her experiences during the band's first American tour. The tone is harder and there are more whoops and hollers. And there seem to be fewer of the old reflective songs like “The Wee Weaver” which used to provide moments of peace.

“To a certain extent” she admits. “Certain things were more difficult to put across in the States, not necessarily because the audience wouldn't take it but because perhaps we weren't as sure of putting them across.”

“Obviously one is preconditioned when you're going to America. You're terrified for a start, and so perhaps we tended to accentuate one side of our music. But I think it genuinely worked and we genuinely felt happier with a generally freer feel.”

“I've got much less introspective on stage now, and I don't eternally wonder what the exact vocal part is any more I'm not concentrating on the vocal part alone, it's an entire feeling I’m going for.”

"A whole band feel is developing which is different from a group of separated, individual people doing their own things.”

So if Maddy Prior has at last developed from being an individual folk singer to a singer with the band, the folk scene's loss has definitely been rock and roll's gain I can see her influence spreading much wider than the comparative narrow confines of the electric folk style.