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Maggie
Holland was born and bred in Hampshire (southern England) and first
became involved with music through the local folk club scene in the
late sixties. Her first professional musical work was as bass
guitarist and eventually, singer
in the blues/goodtime duo Hot
Vultures with Ian A. Anderson. The Vultures toured in Britain,
Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, covering approximately 30,000
miles per year during 1973-79; Maggie was also the sole driver. The
duo expanded into the English
Country Blues Band in the late seventies, with Rod Stradling and
Sue Harris (later Chris Coe).
By
1980, Maggie had started to work occasionally as a soloist,
accompanying her voice on guitar and 5-string banjo on a mixture of
modern and traditional
British/American songs. It was in 1983 that she recorded her first
solo album Still
Pause. She worked
in an occasional duo with Chris Coe, including a tour of the Far East
for the British Council in 1985. In the meantime, ECBB
had further evolved into a country dance band called Tiger
Moth which was not only quite popular, but also quite LOUD!
In
1985 Maggie was called on at short notice to be the female singer in a
three month run of the National Theatre’s production of Tony
Harrison’s stunning Mysteries
trilogy. Around this time she did some work with Oxford-based
melodeon player Dave Parry, and continued to play in The
Vacant Lot, a small country dance band based in NE Hampshire, in
spite of her move to Oxford in ‘86. In 1987 she started to write
some songs herself, initially encouraged/goaded into it by her Tiger
Moth colleague Jon Moore,
with whom she had recorded the EP A
Short Cut. With Moore, and Kevin Mason on keyboards, she
formed Maggie’s Farm which
was able to develop the arrangements of the songs considerably.
Maggie’s Farm did a memorable tour of Bangladesh in 1988. The
following year she started playing bass in songwriter Robb
Johnson’s occasional band, with fellow old Moth John Maxwell on
drums.
By
the beginning of the 90’s the various band line-ups had lived out
their natural spans for one reason or another, and in 1992 Maggie
recorded her second solo album Down
to the Bone. It received
great acclaim (although inversely proportional sales figures).
She emigrated to Scotland in 1993 and now lives in Leith.
Since the beginning of 1996, Maggie started to work regularly
in Belgium again after a long and regrettable gap since the last Hot
Vultures tour in 1978. In the winter of 98/99 Maggie recorded Getting There, on Irregular Records (IRR 035). Her current repertoire includes songs by Robb Johnson, Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg and Bruce Cockburn alongside her own original songs and some traditional material. Her songs have been recorded by several other artistes, including Martin Carthy and June Tabor. In February 2000 Maggie received the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards “Best Song of 1999” for her song A Place Called England. Circle of Light was recorded in the summer of 2003 and released in late autumn. Maggie's own voice and instrumentation were augmented by Wendy Wetherby on cello and Malcom Ross on guitar. It features songs by Leon Rosselson, Billy Bragg, Dave Evans and Al Stewart, including no less than 5 from Robb Johnson. The two Holland originals, No 4071, Private Bennett and Cold night on Bernard Street have attracted critical acclaim - the latter song was already established in June Tabor's live repertoire. An archaeological excavation of Maggie's earlier recorded works has resulted in a compilation called Bones that includes tracks from Still Pause ( 1983), A Short Cut (1986), Down To the Bone ( 1993) and some previously unreleased stuff.....also a new recording of A Place Called England. The majority are on CD for the first time. More details plus retail from http://www.frootsmag.com/shop/beatnik/
"The proof
that outstanding contemporary songs are still being written”
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