All Around My Hat (album)

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All Around My Hat
Studio album by Steeleye Span
Released	October 1975
Recorded	July 1975
Studio	Air Studios, London
Genre	British folk rock
Length	38:33
Label	Chrysalis
Producer	Mike Batt
Steeleye Span chronology
Commoners Crown (1975) All Around My Hat (1975) Rocket Cottage (1976)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]

All Around My Hat is a 1975 album by Steeleye Span, their eighth and highest-charting, reaching number 7 on the UK Albums Chart, and staying on the charts for six months. It was produced by Mike Batt, who also produced their follow-up album, "Rocket Cottage". It briefly made the band a household name in the UK.^{[citation needed]} In the United States it became the band's first album to chart, reaching number 143.

The title track was edited to just over three minutes long for single release and became their highest-charting 45, reaching No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart, with "Black Jack Davy" as a B-side. In 1996 it was recorded by Status Quo, with Maddy Prior on guest vocals, and when they toured England that year with Steeleye Span as support, she joined them on stage to sing it as an encore. Released as a single, it reached No. 47.

In 1976 an edited version of a second track from the album "Hard Times of Old England" was also issued as a single but did not chart.

The song "Dance with Me" is a version of a Scandinavian ballad Herr Olof och Älvorna.

The album cover and back was designed by John O'Connor, a friend of Hart's, using an anamorphic projection that distorted the facial features of the band members but which looks correct when viewed from the side through special pinholes in the lyric sheet.

Versions[]

The record label Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs reissued this LP in a half-speed mastered, Japan-pressed, limited-edition audiophile vinyl edition that was released in 1980, as catalog number MFSL 1-027.^[2]

Track listing[]

All tracks Traditional, arranged by Hart/Prior/Knight/Johnson/Kemp

1. "Black Jack Davy"
2. "Hard Times of Old England"
3. "Cadgwith Anthem"
4. "Sum Waves"
5. "The Wife of Ushers Well"
6. "Gamble Gold (Robin Hood)"
7. "All Around My Hat"
8. "Dance With Me"
9. "Batchelors Hall"

Personnel[]

Steeleye Span

• Maddy Prior - vocals
• Tim Hart - guitar, vocals, dulcimer
• Bob Johnson - guitar, vocals
• Rick Kemp - bass guitar, vocals
• Peter Knight - violin, vocals, mandolin
• Nigel Pegrum - drums, flute

References[]