Biography
Mike and Mandy Morton launched Spriguns Of Tolgus inside the folk club they ran in Cambridge, England. Rick Thomas on fiddle and Chris Russon on electric guitar augmented the Mortons across the band’s first two independently funded albums. Their soft focus electric folk approach attracted a Decca contract after Steeleye Span’s Tim Hart urged them forward and produced Revel, Weird & Wild in 1976. By that stage operating simply as the Spriguns, the group added Dick Powell on keyboards, Tom Ling on fiddle, and Chris Woodcock on drums. Mandy Morton’s reworkings of traditional ballads blended so seamlessly with source material that the two became hard to separate. Powell remained for Time Will Pass, which also brought aboard Australians Wayne Morrison on guitar and Dennis Dunstan on drums. Focus increasingly centered on Mandy Morton, prompting later releases to appear solely under her name. Magic Lady drew several notable folk guests. Her 1979 signing with Polydor Scandinavia yielded some of her strongest work in years. “Scandinavia is great,” she observed in 1980, “they just turn up and listen to the music and don’t think about categories or pigeon holes.” Early-1980s tours featured a straightforward rock band, and one album contained a paisley version of “Somebody To Love” as tribute to her enduring heroine Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane and related projects. The warm feyness of Morton’s vocals energized the Spriguns, yet they never broke through despite the major-label deal. Mandy Morton later worked as a presenter at BBC Radio Cambridge. Spriguns recordings subsequently drew strong interest from record collectors.