After a devastating road accident in which two people connected with Fairport Convention died, Ashley Hutchings left the band and went to live with the Peggs.
Some of the tracks, including a version of Sydney Carter's Lord of the Dance, used an instrumental line-up of fiddle, melodeon, cello, bass and drums, which was inspired by the old village bands of the Yorkshire Dales.
Bill Leader played the tapes for Nat Joseph of Transatlantic Records, who signed the Peggs up, despite his having had a previous contractual disagreement with them in the aftermath of 1965's The Second Wave.
For their first album they recruited Alan Eden (drums), Barry Lyons (bass), Andrew Massey (cello) and John Myatt (clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon) and adopted the name Mr Fox, which was also the title of their signature song, based on a bloody English folk tale - a version of the Bluebeard legend - in which a young woman outwits a serial killer.
[3] A more varied album than the first offering, it was again based around self-penned material, but included two traditional songs 'The House Carpenter' and the final track 'All the Good Times', with new verses by Bob Pegg.
In fact this was an invented name for an ad hoc gathering of musicians and singers - including Rod and Danny Stradling, and members of Swan Arcade - who were overdubbed three times to produce a massive chorus sound.
Carole (as Carolanne Pegg) recorded an eponymous solo album in 1973, and briefly formed the band Magus with jazz R & B maestro Graham Bond before moving on to become a respected ethnomusicologist.
[1] The distinctive feature of their music was the dominance of self-penned songs drawing on the atmosphere and folklore of the Yorkshire Dales, often, like 'The Hanged Man' (the story of a lost fell walker coming to grief), sounding like modern day Child Ballads.
One thing they lacked was an outstanding singer like Maddy Prior or Sandy Denny, with Carole Pegg's vocals usually being perceived as eerie or atmospheric in their best moments, so much so that they have been described as 'psychedelic'.