Friday 5th February One of the founder members of Barclay James Harvest was Stuart Wolstenholme, known as Woolly.  He was very prolific on the first two albums writing or co-writing many of the songs but gradually the songwriting of John Lees and Les Holroyd took over and Woolly became the George Harrison of the band allocated one song per album, but great songs nonetheless.  Eventually as the band started cruising on the annual writing, recording and live tour treadmill Woolly became frustrated and left.  I think he felt that the band had moved from their original ideas of a mix of orchestral and rock music and into a safe style with little real originality.  In 1980 he released Maestoso, his masterpiece.  This was as good as any of the recent BJH albums and was full of songs he had written originally for the band but had failed to make the cut.  It remains one of my favourite records, it is moody and uplifting and quite unlike anything else around at the time. Woolly did plan a follow up album, but this was shelved and only released a few years later.  He became disillusioned with the music business and took to farming.  But a few years later he rejoined with John Less and began writing and recording his own music again.  It never quite reached the heights of Maestoso, which became the name he recorded under and he seemed to hate performing live.  He struggled with mental illness for years and took his own life in 2010.  In many ways he was the heart of Barclay James Harvest and his songs will live on, as will the brilliant album Maestoso.