Maggie Holland

Maggie Holland was born and bred in Hampshire (southern England), and first became involved with music through the local folk scene in the late sixties. Her first professional musical work was as bass guitarist and, eventually, singer in the blues/goodtime duo, Hot Vultures, which also featured Ian A. Anderson (now of Folk Roots fame). The Vultures toured in Britain, Belgium, Germany and Holland, covering approx 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 with 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 songs with some traditional British/Appalachian ballads (and one or two Jimmie Rogers songs). It was in 1983 that she recorded her first solo aibum, 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, the ECBB had further evolved into a country dance band called Tiger Moth which was not only very popular, but satisfyingly loud!

In 1985, Maggie was called on at very short notice to be the female singer in a three month run of the National Theatre production of Tony Harrison's stunning "Mysteries" trilogy. Around this time she also did some work with Oxford melodeon player, Dave Parry, and continued to play in The Vacant Lot, a small country dance band based in N. Hampshire, in spite of her move to Oxford in '86. She continued to work on her solo repetoire and in 1987 started to write some songs herself, initially cajoled/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 fomed 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. In 1989 she started playing bass in songwriter Robb Johnson's occasional band, with fellow old Moth John Maxwell on drums.

By the beginnig 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 was received with almost universal acclaim and showered with compliments. Maggie emigrated to Scotland in 1993 and now lives in Edinburgh. Her solo album "By Heart" was released on Rhiannon in September 1995. Reviews were as good as for Down to the Bone, focusing on Maggie's talent, not only as an interpreter of fine songs, but as a writer of them too. Touring subsequent to the release of 'By Heart' has seen Maggie making her first solo ventures around Europe, and her profile has been maintained with the re-release of the 'Best Of Hot Vultures' on Ian A. Anderson's Weekend Beatnik label. Maggie has also recorded an album of new material for her friend Robb Johnson's Irregular Records label.

Maggie Holland's Official Website:

http://www.maggieholland.co.uk