Strawbs
English rock band
The Strawbs were an English rock band formed in London in 1963 by Dave Cousins (vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer) and Tony Hooper (vocals, guitar). Over 25 musicians have been members across its history, with Cousins being the leader, principal songwriter, and longest serving member of the band. Other notable members were Ron Chesterman, Rick Wakeman, Richard Hudson, John Ford, Blue Weaver, Dave Lambert, Chas Cronk, and Rod Coombes.
The group started out as a bluegrass duo called the Strawberry Hill Boys, but recruited additional members and evolved towards folk and electronic rock. In 1968, after a period recording with vocalist Sandy Denny, the group were the first act to sign with American label A&M Records. They had initial UK chart success as a five-piece with their third release, the live album Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios (1970). The Strawbs adopted a progressive rock-oriented direction for the rest of the decade and reached their commercial peak with Grave New World (1972) and Bursting at the Seams (1972), of which the latter featured "Part of the Union" and "Lay Down" which reached No. 2 and No. 12 in the UK, respectively. Following Hero and Heroine (1974) and Ghosts (1975) and continued touring, mostly in the US and Canada, the group split 1980.
“Strawbs” enters the record as english rock band. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Strawbs, English and rock can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q926799. VIAF identifies the subject as 124122453. The Library of Congress control number is n91072436. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1968, 1970 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Strawbs” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.