All Around My Hat (album)

All Around My Hat
Studio album by Steeleye Span
Released	October 1975
Recorded	July 1975 Air Studios, London
Genre	Electric folk
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 briefly made the band a household name in the UK. In the United States it became the band's first album to chart, reaching number 143.

The title track was Steeleye Span's highest-charting single, reaching number 5 in the UK Singles Chart, with "Black Jack Davy" as a B-side. In 1976 the single "Hard Times of Old England" was issued as a single.

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 '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

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

• 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