when Steeleye Span had a Christmas Top 20 hit single ("Gaudete") in 1973 and another Top 5 hit in 1975 ("All Around My Hat"). The album of the same name was their most commercially successful, reaching no. 5 in the UK album chart in the same year. By comparison Fairport Convention released few singles and made very little impact on the British charts, although their albums sold well in the early 1970s. Liege & Lief reached no. 17 in 1969 and a later album, Angel Delight made the Top 10 in 1971. Most of their career, from that point until they initially disbanded in 1979, was one of declining profile and sales. The same was generally true of other electric folk outfits. The late 1970s and early 1980s were a time to either abandon the genre or fight a losing struggle for survival. The reason is often said to be the rise of punk rock, which reached a peak in 1977. It changed the ethos of popular music, overturning certainties about musicianship and songwriting and had no greater target than the old fashioned folk musicians of the preceding generation. All popular music trends have a generational problem as their audiences grow and might not be replaced, but for folk rock the discontinuity was very acute. One result was a further hybridisation with the development of folk punk among younger acts in the later 1970s, some of which, like the Pogues and The Levellers, achieved some mainstream success. The early 1980s were the nadir of electric folk, when, in contrast to the mid-1970s only the Albion Band (with the associated Home Service) and the Oysterband remained as major exponents of the genre and this was perhaps their least productive period, although in part, at least, this was due to lack of major record company interest in the genre. Folk-rock has never been a major revenue earner for record companies, even in its 1970s heyday. As a consequence of this lack of interest the three Home Service albums released between 1984 and 1986 came out on three different independent labels (Jigsaw, Coda and Making Waves), which further dented theuir commercial prospects. Resurgence 1985–present In the later 1980s, things began to look much more positive for the genre. Despite formally disbanding in 1979, Fairport Convention staged what were initially called "reunion" concerts annually from 1980, which eventually evolved into the Cropredy Festival ("Fairport's