Hedgehog Pie

"The Green Lady" 1975

The critical success (versus the commercial success that it was not) of their self-titled album, accompanied by generous praise of their live performances, was encouragement enough for Hedgehog Pie to contemplate making another LP. By this time a drummer named Dik (Alan Dixon) had joined the band. THE GREEN LADY came in a laminated gatefold sleeve with a colorful cover painting, and various monochrome photographs of the band performing and in the studio on the inside Again boasting ten tracks, the four instrumentals suggested a new direction for the band, moving away from a strictly traditional style to incorporating jazz and hard rock elements. These new ingredients were especially evident on the vocal tracks. Side two's "The Gardener" (trad.), "Daemon Merchant" (Doonan), and Dreamer (Jenkins), served to free the band from their purer folk roots. Only the title tune, which could easily have passed for a Steeleye Span recording, and the preceding instrumental, "Hunter's House/The Oak Tree," sounded like holdovers from earlier sessions.

THE GREEN LADY was also critically well-received, and was soon followed by what may be the group's rarest recording of all, an EP (extended-play single) entitled THE WONDERFUL LEGEND OF THE LAMBTON WORM (TUB 12). The four tracks recounted, in songs that even a small child could love, the legend of the giant worm that plagued the village of Lambton and of its conqueror, Sir John. "The Lambton Worm" and "Come Join the Show" (both up-tempo group sing-alongs) comprised side one; while "I am the Worm" (an eerie dirge) and "Sir John Fights the Worm" made up side two. There were apparently very few copies of this record pressed, given its immediate scarcity.