Plainsong was originally a British country rock/folk rock band, formed in early 1972 by Iain Matthews, formerly of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort, and Andy Roberts, previously a member of The Liverpool Scene and Everyone. Plainsong's line-up consisted of Matthews, Roberts, piano and bass player David Richards who had played with Roberts in the band Everyone, and American guitarist and bass player Bobby Ronga, who Matthews and Roberts had first met in the summer of 1971 when they toured the US and Canada as an acoustic trio with former Fairport guitarist Richard Thompson.

Managed by record producer Sandy Roberton, Plainsong released just one album during their original existence, In Search of Amelia Earhart in October 1972, before splitting up at the end of December that year in somewhat acrimonious circumstances. A second studio album Now We Are 3 was recorded before the split but remained unreleased until 2005.

Matthews and Roberts have revived Plainsong several times since the early 1990s, firstly as a quartet in 1992 with two new band members: Mark Griffiths, Matthews' former colleague in Matthews Southern Comfort, and British singer-songwriter Julian Dawson, recording a new album Dark Side Of The Room in 1992 and then going out on tour in August 1993 for the first time in 20 years. Two more albums followed - Voices Electric in 1994 and Sister Flute in 1996 - before Clive Gregson replaced Dawson in the band in 1996, touring Europe in 1997 and recording another new album New Place Now in 1999. Dawson rejoined Plainsong in 2003 for their next album Pangolins.

During the 2000s Matthews and Roberts intermittently performed and recorded together as a duo under the Plainsong name (sometimes as 'Plainsong Light') and in 2015 they revived Plainsong as a band once again, this time as a trio with Mark Griffiths, to record an album of Richard Fariña songs.Reinventing Richard: The Songs Of Richard Fariña released by Fledg'ling Records in 2015. Touring to promote the album began in 2016 and included a performance at the 2017 Cropredy Festival. They also released a live album under their own names in 2021, a performance recorded in Nottingham in 1991.Live At The Bonington Theatre - Nottingham - 1991 released by Angel Air Records in 2021.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Plainsong’s 1972 debut album, 2022 saw both the release of a book In Search Of Plainsong by Ian Clayton which charts the history of the original 1972 band, and a retrospective 6-CD box set compilation, Following Amelia: The 1972 Recordings & More from Cherry Red Records. A short UK tour by Matthews and Roberts to promote both releases took place in December 2022.

Original band Ian (later Iain) Matthews had been a member of Fairport Convention between 1967 and 1969, sharing vocals on the band's first two albums, the self-titled Fairport Convention and What We Did On Our Holidays, singing with Judy Dyble initially and then later Sandy Denny. By the time of the recording of band's third album Unhalfbricking, Fairport, under Denny's influence, had largely abandoned their original American singer-songwriter material and were moving towards what would become known as English folk rock. The genre was somewhat alien to Matthews' tastes at the time, leading to a discontent within Fairport that saw him essentially fired from the band after a meeting with producer Joe Boyd in February 1969.Iain Matthews with Ian Clayton, Thro' My Eyes: A Memoir, Route Publishing 2018, pp. 75-76

He then left to work solo, soon afterwards forming his own band, Matthews Southern Comfort whose greatest success was topping the UK Singles Chart with their version of Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" in late October 1970. After that band split up, he recorded two solo albums in 1971 for the Vertigo label, If You Saw Thro' My Eyes and Tigers Will Survive, on both of which Andy Roberts had played guitar.

The beginnings of Plainsong stemmed from Iain Matthews' tour of the US in the summer of 1971 to promote his If You Saw Thro' My Eyes album released at the beginning of May that year. Matthews visited the US in June 1971 to meet with record industry contacts and to promote the album through a series of press conferences for Mercury Records, the distributor of the Vertigo label in America. That trip took in several US cities and laid the groundwork for a return at the end of July as an acoustic trio - joining him on the tour were Andy Roberts and his former colleague Richard Thompson, who by that time had recently left Fairport Convention. The tour would see them play residencies at The Bitter End in New York, the Poison Apple in Detroit and the legendary Troubador nightclub in Los Angeles. Their driver for the tour was New Yorker Bobby Ronga, who also happened to play bass and piano. Ronga was invited by Matthews to join them on bass during their mid-August Bitter End residency, where they were booked as the support act to the singer Dion (DiMucci), who at that time was reinventing himself as a folk singer some ten years after coming to fame with chart hits such as "Runaround Sue" and "Teenager In Love".

Following that tour, Andy Roberts was booked as the support act on an upcoming Steeleye Span tour and needed a bass player. His Everyone bandmate David Richards was his immediate choice but was unavailable as he was already out on tour with Sandy Denny.Ian Clayton, In Search of Plainsong, Route Publishing 2022, p.84 Roberts had liked Bobby Ronga's bass playing style on that summer tour and invited him to fill the vacant slot. Ronga duly moved to the UK for the tour, and also ended up playing piano alongside Roberts’ guitar work on the recording sessions for Matthews' second Vertigo album Tigers Will Survive.

Throughout that period, Matthews and Roberts frequently discussed the idea of playing together on a more formal basis. It came to fruition in late December 1971 after a meeting at Matthews' Highgate flat, where with Richards and Ronga they tried out the Tandyn Almer song "Along Comes Mary""Along Comes Mary" written by Tandyn Almer, released by The Association in March 1966. and agreed that if it worked satisfactorily they would go ahead and form a band. The band's name was picked on a whim when later that evening they randomly opened a copy of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music to find Plainsong at pages 450-451.Ian Clayton, In Search of Plainsong, Route Publishing 2022, p.91

Plainsong were managed by record producer Sandy Roberton whose music production and artist management company September Productions had signed The Liverpool Scene as their first artists in 1968. Roberton produced four albums in just under two years for The Liverpool Scene, plus Roberts’ 1970 solo album Home Grown and his 1971 Everyone album with Richards, in addition to producing Matthews’ first two solo albums in a three-album deal with Vertigo. He also produced and managed the folk rock band Steeleye Span amongst many others during that era.

After a month of rehearsals at a studio in London called The Cabin,Ian Clayton, In Search of Plainsong, Route Publishing 2022, p.95 Plainsong began their first UK tour at the end of January 1972, beginning at Leeds University on 29 January 1972 and ending at The Roundhouse in London on 19 March; they then embarked on a 10-date tour of Holland on 24 March. The band signed to Elektra Records and in June and July of that year recorded their debut album, In Search of Amelia Earhart, at the Sound Techniques studio in Chelsea favoured by producer Sandy Roberton for his stable of artists. The album was released on Friday 6 October 1972Karl Dallas, 'The True Story Of Plainsong', Melody Maker, 23 September 1972 : Music paper cutting in the 1994 Iain Matthews video Compass & Chart Volume 1 and mixed songs by both Matthews and Roberts with several covers, including versions of "Red River Dave" McEnery's song "Amelia Earhart's Last Flight", Paul Siebel's "Louise" and Jerry Yester and Judy Henske's "Raider". The album also included "True Story Of Amelia Earhart's Last Flight", a Matthews song based on research that suggests that Amelia Earhart on her round-the-world flight in 1937 may have been spying on Japanese bases in the Pacific islands, and "Even the Guiding Light", a response to Richard Thompson's song "Meet on the Ledge" on Fairport's What We Did On Our Holidays album.

In Search Of Amelia Earhart was critically well-received on its release - Record Mirror called it "The Contemporary Folk Record of the Year";Album review, October 1972 and rock journalist Charles Shaar Murray, reviewing the album in New Musical Express, described it as “one of the classic albums of 1972”NME album reviews, 28 October 1972 - but despite the acclaim it did not sell in particularly big numbers and was thus not a commercial success. The group continued to tour throughout the last three months of 1972 (with the addition of drummer Roger Swallow for a short time during October)Ian Clayton, In Search of Plainsong, Route Publishing 2022, p.167-176 and recorded a second album at Sound Techniques during December. The album was initially known during the recording sessions by two alternate titles: Plainsong III and Now We Are 3, to reflect the fact that they were by now a trio, Bobby Ronga having been asked to leave the band in November due to a drinking problem.Ian Clayton, In Search of Plainsong, Route Publishing 2022, p.183-187 However, relationships between the remaining band members deteriorated considerably towards the end of 1972 and Plainsong broke up at the end of December after Matthews accepted an offer from Elektra Records boss Jac Holzman to move to California to record as a solo artist working with ex-Monkee now turned record producer Michael Nesmith.Iain Matthews with Ian Clayton, Thro' My Eyes: A Memoir, Route Publishing 2018, pp. 122-125 With the band no longer in existence to promote the album, it remained officially unreleased, though a white-label promo copy by Elektra designated Plainsong III (K42136)Ian Clayton, In Search of Plainsong, Route Publishing 2022, p.192 did make it into existence, as did a bootleg cassette and then CD version circulated widely amongst Plainsong fans. Several songs from the intended follow-up album would subsequently appear on various Roberts and Matthews solo albums - "Urban Cowboy" for instance became the title song of Roberts' 1973 solo album, and "Keep On Sailing" and "Save Your Sorrows" would appear on Matthews' 1973 solo album Valley Hi.

In Search of Amelia Earhart in its original form was unavailable on CD for many years, being issued as a Japanese-only CD by Warner-Elektra in 1991Elektra WPCP-4140 and then reissued by Matthews' own label Perfect Pitch in 2001, and more recently by Man In The Moon Records in 2016. The unissued Plainsong III, now under the Now We Are 3 title, finally saw the light of day in 2005 as the second disc of a 2-CD re-issue by Water Records just entitled Plainsong, where both Plainsong albums featured along with radio recordings, demos and singles, including "Along Comes Mary".

Three albums of archive Plainsong recordings were released on CD in the 1990s, including And That's That - The Demos, comprising recordings made for the band's unreleased second album, and two versions of On Air containing tracks recorded at the BBC studios in several sessions throughout 1972.Recording dates can be found on the rear cover of On Air. The BBC material was also re-released in 2022 as part of a 50th anniversary box set on Cherry Red Records.

Plainsong also recorded two television sessions for the BBC2 music programme The Old Grey Whistle Test, appearing on 7 March and 17 October 1972 respectively. Introduced by presenter Bob Harris, Plainsong's performance of "Even The Guiding Light" from the October OGWT show can be viewed on YouTube.

Revival