Elizabeth Hand: Wylding Hall

I knew that if I couldn’t convince the band right then and there, the chance would be lost. They’d go their separate ways, which is pretty much what they did end up doing, and I’d be left with nine beautiful songs that no one would ever hear.

Jon

Tom talked us into releasing the live recordings from Wylding Hall. Actually, he held us hostage — he wouldn’t let us leave the office until he played them for us.

He was right: they were pretty brilliant. We listened to the tapes twice, all the way through each time. After the freak-out over Billy’s photos, they were a breath of fresh air. We’d all been up for twenty-four hours by then — not for the first time, but it was a very emotional experience.

Imagine if you could go back and repeat one of the best days of your life — that’s what it was like. Lesley cried, hearing Julian sing, but we still assumed he’d be back. At least I did. So, we took a vote and everyone voted yes. And then we all went home.

Everyone was completely knackered. Lesley couldn’t keep her eyes open, and I was walking into walls. Tom saw us out; he promised he’d talk to Billy and sort everything with the photos and get contracts to us as soon as possible.

And so he did. Six weeks later, twenty-fifth of November, Wylding Hall was released. The feast of St. Catherine, she of the Catherine Wheel, which is a type of firework and also a torture device. Which seemed appropriate.

New Musical Express, December 1972

Short Reviews: Windhollow Faire, “Wylding Hall”

Review by Patricia Kenyon

London-based folk outfit Windhollow Faire upsets the trad applecart with Wylding Hall , follow-on to their eponymous debut album. Wylding Hall expands the boundaries of psychedelic folk far, far beyond the likes of Strawbs, Fairport Convention, and even the Incredible String Band. With their new record, Windhollow doesn’t open the sonic doors of perception so much as blast them apart with a deceptively bucolic plein air album, courtesy of maverick studio Moonthunder Records. From the album opener, Lesley Stansall’s exquisite “Cloud Prince,” on through Julian Blake’s eerie closer, “Thrice Tosse These Oaken Ashes,” the album more than delivers on the band’s promise. One for the ages.

Patricia Kenyon

What a beautiful album that was: like a midsummer day in the middle of winter. All the reviews were strong. NME ran my piece on the band the same week the disc was released, along with my review of Wylding Hall . They got a nice little boost from that.

The cover helped — that striking photograph of everyone staring at the sky with that unearthly light, like they were watching an atomic blast.

And the girl in white — everyone was talking about the girl. Who she was, what she symbolized.

I recognized her the instant I saw the cover. She was the same girl I’d seen in the library at Wylding Hall when I was there that summer. But I had no more idea than anyone else as to who she was.

Back then people pored over album covers like they were tea leaves or tarot cards. What does Led Zeppelin’s fourth album mean? What’s it even called?

Everyone had a theory about the cover of Wylding Hall . By then, everyone knew that Julian Blake had gone walkabout, and somehow people linked that with the white girl. I certainly did. I tried calling Les and Jonno and the rest to ask them about it, but they wouldn’t return my phone calls. Tom Haring just laughed at me.

“It’s a mystery, darling. Why would I solve it and spoil the fun?”

He meant spoil the album’s sales. People were buying it as a Christmas gift — I gave copies to my two brothers, and I knew some folks who found duplicates under the tree. It was definitely on heavy rotation on BBC’s Radio 1 during the Christmas hols.

The only thing the band didn’t get out of it was a hit single. Sometimes you get a hit right away. Just as often, it takes a few months for word of mouth and airplay to build interest.

Also, you need to perform, and Windhollow Faire didn’t do that. I’m not sure why. Julian Blake was an integral part of the group, no doubt about that, but they could have found someone to fill in for him. Richard Thompson, Roy Harper. Even just the four remaining members could have done something.

And the album never got enough airplay. BBC’s Radio 1 and Radio Caroline played it, but it never broke into the big commercial stations. After a few months, it all sort of disappeared. Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy came out and everyone was talking about that — had they produced another “Stairway to Heaven”? We all had to buy the new Zeppelin album to decide.

In the meantime, Wylding Hall lost momentum and never regained it. The album got buried and, within a few years, mostly forgotten.

Ashton

Tastes change. First glam rock was big, then punk. There was still an audience for acid folk, but it got squeezed by the next big thing, whatever that turned out to be. We’d never been in the folkie mainstream long enough to build up much of an audience there. I begged the others to play a few gigs with me, but they refused. Everyone has their reasons, I understand that, but they tossed that album under a bus.

In the long run, that worked in our favor. A few years ago, when Devendra Banhart and Mumford & Sons and Roxanna Starkey began talking it up, vinyl copies were going for a hundred pounds — if you could find one. Our record had seemed to be everywhere that Christmas, but when we got our royalty statements, it turned out that only a couple thousand copies were sold. It never went into a second pressing.

But since the nineteen eighties, some people had been passing around bootleg copies on cassettes and CD. Tom Haring jumped all over that. He threatened folks with legal action, then got in touch with a few of the famous people who loved the album and asked them to blog or tweet about it. He remastered the tapes and released Wylding Hall online as a twofer with our first album. A lot of bands started to cover “Windhover Morn” and add our songs to their set list.

That’s when we finally began to see real sales and real money. That’s when fans began to come out of the woodwork. That’s when the cult of Julian Blake exploded.

Will

Oh yeah — Windhollow Faire, the missing years. None of us actually disappeared, you know, except for Julian. Me and Nancy split up a year after Wylding Hall . Les was still living with us in Brixton and something was bound to happen. I mean, Les was seventeen and at the height of her beauty. Who could resist her?

We all handled it in relatively civilized fashion. Nancy moved out and Les stayed on. After the first year or two, the dust settled. We’d see each other at parties or gigs and it seemed kind of futile to pretend we didn’t know each other. Far too much water under the bridge for that. We’re closer now than we were then — Nancy is like a sister to me and Les.

It was a bit more sketchy with the others, Ashton in particular. He couldn’t forgive us for not performing as Windhollow Faire, especially when Les and I formed Greenleaves and had a hit with “Copredy Carnival.” He went on to do a lot of session work, a lot of jazz recordings. Good bassists are scant on the ground. We made it up eventually, and we’re all good friends now, but there were years we didn’t speak to each other.

Jonno struck off on his own and joined the Blazing Hammers. Got back to his rock and roll roots. They’ve kept him busy ever since, still draw a crowd in some places — they’re big in Brazil.