Although Mellow Candle never achieved lasting mainstream recognition, during their active years this Irish folk-rock group was routinely linked with fellow late-1960s Emerald Isle acts such as Steeleye Span, the Chieftains, Thin Lizzy, and Horslips. Their story begins in 1963 at Dublin’s Holy Child Convent, where students Clodagh Simonds, Alison Bools, and Maria White formed the vocal trio the Gatecrashers. After performing contemporary covers within the school for several years, 14-year-old Simonds and Bools—following White’s departure—sent a demo to Radio Luxembourg DJ Colin Nichol, who forwarded it to producer and manager Simon Napier-Bell, known at the time for the Yardbirds and John’s Children. Impressed, Napier-Bell organized a session that yielded the 1968 single “Feeling High” b/w “Tea with the Sun,” issued on his short-lived SNB imprint under the newly adopted name Mellow Candle.
The record’s psychedelic girl-group style failed to reach the charts, prompting Simonds’s parents to enroll her in an Italian school while Bools entered art college in Ireland and joined local covers band Blue Tint. There she met guitarist David Williams, her future husband; with bassist Pat Morris added and Simonds back from Italy, the group relaunched in 1970, making its first appearance supporting the Chieftains. Further shows and festival bills alongside Horslips, Taste, and Thin Lizzy raised their profile, and Simonds contributed harpsichord and Mellotron to Thin Lizzy’s Shades of a Blue Orphanage. By the album’s release, Mellow Candle had already begun recording their Deram debut, replacing Morris with former Creatures bassist Frank Boylan and adding ex-Kevin Ayers drummer William Murray. Produced by David Hitchcock, Swaddling Songs appeared in April 1972—the same month the band opened for Steeleye Span at Dublin’s National Stadium.
Despite the prestigious gig, the album met indifference or outright dismissal from contemporary critics, including an NME review labeling it a “tax loss,” yet later became regarded as a cornerstone of overlooked British folk-rock. In the 1990s its fusion of Celtic folk, progressive, goth, psych, and rock elements, anchored by the distinctive, intuitively blended vocals of Simonds and Williams, was celebrated as a lost classic; original pressings commanded high collector prices until belated CD reissues eased demand. The acclaim arrived too late for the band itself, which had attempted to overcome the album’s commercial disappointment through tours with Genesis and Curved Air, briefly adopted the name Grace Before Space, and ultimately dissolved by the close of 1973.
