Where improbable tales from rock’s annals are concerned, Magna Carta’s story fits the bill. They had encounters with ghosts, David Bowie and human entrails; and gigs in the Gaza Strip, Kathmandu and even the Amazon Rainforest. “I look back and think: how did it all happen?” says the group’s amiable linchpin Chris Simpson. “It does seem like a bit of a dream.”
Eighty-one in July, Simpson is chatting to Prog from his home in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. Upbeat despite a nasty cough and recent bouts with Covid and pneumonia, he reports, “It’s a lovely snowy morning, and adds that he’s “currently lying down”. Mention Magna Carta’s 1970 prog-folk masterpiece Seasons, or even 1973’s Lord Of The Ages – “One of the greatest albums of its kind ever made,” Rick Wakeman has averred – and Simpson’s natural ebullience grows. Magna Carta remain a cult band, and having led them for more than five decades he seems delighted that someone still cares.
