The group STONE ANGEL were formed by the key members of another Norfolk (UK) area band (MIDWINTER), and like that group much of their early recorded music went either unnoticed, unreleased or both until its release by Kissing Spell in the mid-nineties. Unlike MIDWINTER, STONE ANGEL did manage to release a couple of studio albums during their heyday, and also reformed after the reissue of their early work. The reformed band still exists today and released the delightful if somewhat difficult-to-locate album ?Circle of Leaves? in late 2007. Multi-instrumentalists Paul Corrick and Ken Saul, along with MIDWINTER acquaintance Mick Burroughs put together the first STONE ANGEL lineup in 1974, replacing former MIDWINTER vocalist Jill Child with the just-as-angelic singer Joan Bartle, who would eventually become Joan Saul. The group rounded out their lineup with violinist/mandoliner Dave Lambert.
I got in touch with John Lee Saul for their story. ################################################################################# If
I am not mistaken, Stone Angel is based on the band Midwinter who is
also represented here in ProgArchives. When and where did you form
Midwinter ? Paul
Corrick and I were rehearsing for a spot at the Great Yarmouth Folk
Club Christmas party in December 1972, but all we could come up with
was a guitar duet version of ‘God rest ye Merry Gentlemen’. We
invited singer Jill Child to join us, and worked on a couple of
recently composed songs based on local legends, ‘Sanctuary Stone’
and ‘The Skater’. That first performance was well received, so we
decided to continue and started to perform at clubs, concerts and
festivals throughout East Anglia.
You
recorded a demo called The Waters of Sweet Sorrow which twenty years
later was found in your attic and released on a CD in 1993. This
feels like the BBC TV series Antiques Roadshow. There should be a
special programme for old bands and artists too. Off course presented
by Fiona Bruce. But please tell us more about this album. What's the
difference between the demo and the album ? There
is no difference between the demo and the album. It was taken
directly from the original master tapes that were in my attic! We had
originally decided to make it chiefly as a promotional thing to send
out cassettes to try to get bookings. I suppose it was also partly to
give ourselves something concrete to remind us of what we did. The
material was all stuff we were currently performing, and we were able
to invite Mick Burroughes and Dik Cadbury to help us out on some
tracks with percussion and bass respectively. Of course, Dik later
found fame with Decameron and Steve Hackett’s band, and Mick joined
us in Stone Angel. Why
did you close down Midwinter and start up Stone Angel ? How much of
Midwinter did you carry over to Stone Angel ? Midwinter
came to an end in September 1974 when Jill left the area to go to
college. I think that Paul and I felt that it was too good a thing
to let go, and we’d already thought about future possibilities once
we knew that Jill would be moving on. He and Mick were playing
together in a rock combo, Joan had arrived on the scene and was now
my girlfriend, and Dave Lambert was having violin lessons with my
aunt and jamming with anyone else who would let him! We
carried over a few of the Midwinter songs, like “The Skater” for
example (which we still sometimes include in our live sets now). We’d
also been performing “The Black Dog” in that band too. The other
members of Stone Angel all brought their own influences to the band,
so it was a bit of a melting pot in that respect. Your
type of folk rock was very popular back in those days with the
Glastonbury and many other festivals in fields, parks and backyards.
How was this time for you ? It was very exciting, although
we probably didn’t really appreciate it at the time. There seemed
to be such a lot of musical experimentation and exploration going on.
Both Midwinter and Stone Angel found themselves performing in all
kinds of venues – clubs, pubs, festivals, village fetes, and so on.
Over
to your self titled debut album from 1975. Please tell us more about
this album. Stone
Angel were performing at all these different gigs, but almost
exclusively in our local area of East Anglia. Many people in our
audiences kept asking if we’d made a record, but we didn’t have
any kind of deal, so we decided to do it ourselves. Our good friend
Eddy Green (who had been part of the band Vulcan’s Hammer) helped
us with the recording, but unfortunately the sound quality suffered
in the transfer to disc. The saving grace for us was the superb
illustration of the stone angel by another friend, the artist Mel
Harris. His original drawing was actually displayed in the Royal
Academy. Despite the poor sound, we managed to sell about two hundred
albums at our gigs. I don’t think at the time that we ever though
that our music was particularly special – it was just what we
enjoyed playing.
You
also have a live album from 1976 named The Holy Rood of Bromholm.
Please tell us more about this live album. When
Paul and Mick left for university and art college respectively, Dave,
Joan and I continued as a trio, becoming more acoustic and
traditional in our approach. Dave was about to go to work in Botswana
for a spell, so we taped one of our performances in a local church
just to have a record of ourselves really. Fortunately, we still had
the tape when Kissing Spell reissued the original album. They asked
what other material we had, and decided to put it out as a separate
album. It
is my understanding you took a long break from Stone Angel until
2000. What were you up to during this time ? Joan
and I carried on playing as a duo, with Dave rejoining us briefly
between returning from Botswana and then getting married and
emigrating to Australia. In
the eighties we became engaged in a slightly more serious venture
with early music, including playing for mediaeval banquets at a local
hostelry. Then in 1985 we formed a new band with Michael Wakelin on
bass, Dave Felmingham on keyboards, and Carole Irwin on vocals. Our
second gig was a local version of Live Aid, with many of our former
fans still referring to us as Stone Angel – so we kept the name
going. Because of the work commitments of the other members the band
was fairly short-lived. The
next stage was an involvement with a local theatre group, writing and
performing music for several productions. From time to time we were
assisted in this by other musicians – Dave Felmingham again, Andrew
Smith (both were then playing together in a local rock band), and
Geoff Hurrell – among others. Joan
and I were still playing around the local folk clubs then, when an
article appeared in the magazine Record Collector citing Stone Angel
as an example of “acid folk”. This was the first time we had
heard of the genre! The article also valued copies of our original
album at £250. It
wasn’t long after that when we were contacted by Kissing Spell with
a view to re-releasing the original Stone Angel album on CD. That was
put out in1994, alongside the Midwinter album and the “live”
recordings.
You
reformed in 2000 and released the East Of The Sun album. Please tell
us more about this album. This
started off as a bit of a self-indulgent project. Joan and I had been
doing
some
research on local traditional folk songs, and, alongside some of the
songs from the 1985 incarnation, we thought it would be nice to get
some decent recordings of them done. We spoke to Dave Felmingham and
Andrew Smith about it, and then contacted Michael Wakelin (who by
this time was living in Cheshire). Richard Danby was also roped in to
add oboe and cor anglais on a couple of tracks. We decided to include
some new material to make it up to an album’s worth, the plan being
to get 100 copies produced just for families and friends. We’d
just completed the recording when we were contacted by the new owners
of Kissing Spell. In the course of the conversation I mentioned the
recording, and they asked if they could hear it. Within a couple of
weeks a draft contract arrived, since when the whole thing seems to
have taken on a life of its own! With gigs planned now to launch the
new album, the new band more or less formed itself. Time, distance
and work commitments prevented Michael from continuing, so Robert
Futter helped out on bass for a while until we were rejoined by
original seventies bass man, Mick Burroughes. At about the same time
we added Jane Denny on percussion and additional vocals.
The
Lonely Waters album followed in 2004. Please tell us more about this
album. This
new line-up was the one that produced Lonely Waters. Although the
overall style and mix of material was similar to the previous album,
it was a much more considered affair, having grown out of what the
band were now performing live. For us, at least, it felt more like a
proper band album. It was suitably fitting that we were able to
include the entire original Stone Angel line-up on one of the tracks.
Paul Corrick came up to join us for what was a memorable weekend at
the studio, while Dave Lambert was able to record his fiddle for us
in Australia and add it to the mix via the wonders of modern
technology! However,
it was also to be marked by tragedy – we had barely finished the
recording and hadn’t even begun the mixing, when Richard died in
tragic circumstances. This really shocked the band, as there had been
no indication to the rest of us of such a possibility. Before the
album was released, Mick left due to pressure of other commitments,
and was replaced by our old friend Geoff Hurrell. After
much discussion, we decided that it would feel impossible to replace
Richard, but we did dedicate that album to his memory.
The
Circle of Leaves album from 2007 is so far your final album. Please
tell us more about this album. We
were given fresh impetus by linking up again with our friends at
Broadlands Theatre Group. Having worked with them in the past, a
discussion amidst the flowing wine at a party somewhere between
Christmas and New Year saw us agreeing to do the music for a joint
project – a community theatre venture around the theme of the Green
Man, a “pageant of ancient mysteries”! As
it turned out, Stone Angel wrote or arranged all the music and
performed it live within the context of the play. All in all, it was
a great experience, and the idea of an album based on the music was
an obvious step. However, it was almost a year after the performances
before we managed to return to the studio, and almost exactly two
years before the album was finally launched. One of the most
memorable bits of the recording occurred when we reassembled
virtually the entire cast, who had joined in with singing the final
choruses of The Promise ( the last track), to record them against a
backing track in the lovely little church at Mautby (in Norfolk). It
was quite moving for all concerned, and we hope something of that
magic comes through to all who listen to the album. What
have you been up to since 2007 and what is your plans for the future
? Stone
Angel celebrated our 35th
anniversary with a concert in Norwich on, appropriately, “the
fourteenth of November” 2009. For us, it was a very enjoyable
evening, with friends old and new among the audience. You can read a
review of the concert on the news page of our website
( http://www.stone-angel.co.uk/" rel="nofollow - ).
I find it difficult to believe that it was that long ago that we
started out, and probably even more difficult to contemplate all that
has happened regarding our music since then. In particular, I am both
amazed and bemused to hear artists of the current scene referencing
us as influences on their own music. As
part of that, you may be aware that the early days of both Midwinter
and Stone Angel are recalled in Jeanette Leech’s recent book,
“Seasons They Change”, an examination of the history and
development of acid and psychedelic folk music. A
further personnel change occurred at the beginning of 2010, with Jane
Denny leaving due to personal commitments. We continue now as a
five-piece band, sharing the duties and/or using programmed
percussion. Aside from performing, we have also spent time
researching and writing new material, and have recently returned to
the studio to commence work on recording another new album - which we
hope may be released sometime during 2012. How
would you compare the 1970s with this new century when it comes to
the popularity of your band and the scene in general ? How would you
compare the gigs scene in these two centuries ? We
have this internet thingy these days which means you in theory can
get a large following in places you have never toured. You also have
a very good homepage on the internet. How is the current interest in
Stone Angel and indeed in Midwinter too ? Do you have as many fans
now as back in the 1970s ? I
am going to cheat slightly by answering both these questions
together. As you say, the internet has made a huge difference to all
musicians and their ability to get their music heard. Although we had
quite a loyal local following in the 1970s, I doubt whether hardly
anyone outside East Anglia would ever have known of us then. Clearly,
the reissue of our earlier recordings was the trigger for the renewed
interest in Midwinter and Stone Angel. That interest appears to be
continuing, and we are aware of fans from all over the world, which
again I find quite bemusing, and humbling, really. It’s an
interesting situation, where we could almost divide our fan base into
three broad groups – those who know about the reissued original
albums from the 70s, but are unaware that we are still performing and
making albums currently; those who enjoy what we are doing now, but
have no idea about our history; and (hopefully, the largest
contingent!) those who know and love the whole story! I guess it may
also be possible that there’s another group who were fans in the
1970s, but know nothing at all about the reissues or anything that
has happened since. One
of the really encouraging things now is the number of very capable
young musicians who are revitalizing the scene. There seems to be a
variety of venue types and a genuinely organic feel to how it is all
developing. Perhaps in some ways that has similarities with how we
recall things being in the 1970s, but it is also markedly different
too – which indeed it should be. To
wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this
interview ? I’d
just like to say thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to
do the interview, and for all the support you have given Stone Angel
via the ProgArchives website. Thank you to John Lee Saul for the interview
Their PA profile is http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2003" rel="nofollow - and http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=4535" rel="nofollow -
Their homepage is http://www.stone-angel.co.uk/" rel="nofollow -
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