Bob Johnson obit

Bob Johnson (1944-2023)

 He was not on the list.

15th Dec: Today is a very sad day for all Steeleye Span fans. The legendary guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Bob Johnson has passed away after a long illness. Bob was in the band throughout their 'classic' and most commercial years in the 70's. He was responsible for many of the bands big ballads including Thomas the Rhymer, King Henry, Alison Gross, Long Lankin, Tam Lin and many more. He was also responsible for spotting the commercial potential of Gaudete and introduced it to the band. He retired from Steeleye and music in 2002 but contributed to the 2013 Wintersmith Album and his original song 'The Green Man' was recently recorded by the band. He will be very much missed by all Steeleye and Folk music fans. R.I.P.

Bob was the bands guitarist throughout its most popular 'Classic' mid 70's era and then from 1980 all the way through to 2002 when he retired from music. His influence cannot be understated. Peter described him as 'Mr Steeleye' as all his efforts and ambitions in music were satisfied by being in Steeleye. He very rarely did anything outside Steeleye musically apart from his 1977 Concept album project with Peter Knight - 'The King of Elflands Daughter' which was narrated by Christopher Lee.

Bob started out working professionally in a number of small pop/rock bands in the early 60's, including backing Paul Raven (see below. But when the implied success never materialised became disillusioned with music and trained as a computer programmer. He then became interested in folk music as a hobby and visited the local folk clubs being particularly impressed with Martin Carthy and started to consider performing himself. It was at this time (1968) that Peter Knight moved into the house share he was living in and so the two of them worked up a repertoire and started playing the local clubs in their spare time.  It was just as Bob was considering taking this up full time that Pete got the call to join Steeleye so Bob, now a systems analyst gave up music again for a year to focus on his career. He was eventually persuaded to work on an album with Roger Nicholson (see below) and then soon after Bob also got the call to join Steeleye. Having always been interested in bringing pop sensibilities into traditional music this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

 Bob's influence on the bands success was very significant as not only did he realise the commercial potential of Gaudete when he heard it in Church, but he was responsible for almost all the Group's big ballads which became their signature sound and are still dominate the set list today. Long Lankin; Thomas the Rhymer; King Henry; Alison Gross; Tam Lin were all devised, arranged, often with newly written melodies, by Bob. All these songs continue to appear regularly.

In keeping with his wish for privacy, once he retired from the band due to ill health he completely retired from music and did not do any interviews or was 'seen' after apart from the recent short 50th Anniversary DVD documentary. The only other exception to this was that the Band asked him to contribute to the 'Wintersmith' project as they knew he loved Terry Pratchett. He wrote 'Ancient eyes' and 'The Wee Free Men' and sung backing vocals. Even better are his demo versions that appear on the Wintersmith 'Deluxe' CD where plays and sings.

Bob never really wanted to do anything 'solo', in his words: "Everything I was doing worked perfectly well in Steeleye Span! It just so happens it did. There was Peter playing and Maddy singing, and what more could I want?"