While the first album was traditionally performed – guitars, bass and with two guest drummers – Please to See the King was revolutionary in its hard electric sound and lack of drums. Gay and Terry were replaced by veteran folk musician Martin Carthy and fiddler Peter Knight in a longer-term line-up that toured small concert venues, recorded a number of BBC Radio Sessions, and recorded two albums – Please to See the King (1971) and Ten Man Mop, or Mr. Terry Woods maintains that the members had agreed that if more than one person departed, the remaining members would select a new name, and he was upset that this did not happen when he and Gay Woods left the band. While recording the album, the five members were all living in the same house, an arrangement that produced considerable tensions particularly between Hart and Prior on the one hand and the Woodses on the other. With two female singers, the original line-up was unusual for the time, and indeed, never performed live, as the Woodses departed the band shortly after the release of the group's debut album, Hark! The Village Wait (1970). The liner notes for their first album include thanks to Carthy for the name suggestion. Only in 1978 did Hart confess that he had voted twice. Although there were only five members in the band, six ballots appeared and "Steeleye Span" won. When the band discussed names, they decided to choose among the three suggestions "Middlemarch Wait", "Iyubidin's Wait", and "Steeleye Span". Martin Carthy gave Hart the idea to name the band after the song character. The song gives an account of a fight between John "Steeleye" Span and John Bowlin, neither of whom is proven to have been a real person. The name Steeleye Span comes from a character in the traditional song "Horkstow Grange" (which they did not actually record until they released an album by that name in 1998). Hutchings' new band was formed after he met established duo Tim Hart and Maddy Prior on the London folk club scene, and the initial line-up was completed by husband and wife team Terry Woods (formerly of Sweeney's Men, later of The Pogues) and Gay Woods.
However, Fairport's co-founder, guitarist Simon Nicol, stated "Whatever the upfront reasons about musical differences and wanting to concentrate on traditional material, I think the accident was the underlying reason why Ashley felt he couldn't continue with us." In part, Hutchings departed because he wanted to pursue a different, more traditional, direction than the other members of Fairport did at that time.
Despite the success of the album, Ashley Hutchings and the band's vocalist Sandy Denny left Fairport Convention. The survivors convalesced in a rented house near Winchester in Hampshire and worked on the album Liege & Lief. Fairport had been involved in a road accident in 1969 in which the drummer, Martin Lamble, and Richard Thompson's girlfriend, Jeannie Franklyn, were killed and other band members injured.
Steeleye Span began in late 1969, when London-born bass player Ashley Hutchings departed Fairport Convention, the band he had co-founded in 1967. 1.10 Peter Knight leaves / Dodgy Bastards album.In their later albums there has been an increased tendency to include music written by the band members, but they have never moved completely away from traditional music, which draws upon pan-British traditions. Their typical album is a collection of mostly traditional songs with one or two instrumental tracks of jigs and/or reels added the traditional songs often include some of the Child Ballads. Throughout their history, Steeleye Span have seen many personnel changes. They had four Top 40 albums and achieved significant sales of "All Around My Hat". Along with Fairport Convention, they are among 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". Steeleye Span are an English folk rock band formed in 1969.