Majesty’s stint with Þriestæpe ended around 1972. The group got itself a record deal, but with the label already having a house band, they had no need to keep one just for that one group, and the band dispersed. Majesty then moved to Ævrefreodeh, married Filthy Rich and had two daughters - Diamond Tiara and Sweetie Belle. But her stint as a housewife wasn’t going to last long. By 1975, she had put together a group that served as a village band. Some of the members were old Þriestæpe band members that had moved to Ævrefreodeh too - Lyra on bass/guitar and Moonstone on the drums, while others were local talent - Windwhistler on piano or woodwinds, Octavia and her father Arpeggio on guitar/strings, and herself on piano or strings.
It was about that time she began to get into songwriting, and eventually, came up with a scheme to plug her songs outside of the normal way, that meant having to do so in Istakhr - they set up a small record label and publisher of their own, and used Arpeggio’s connections with radio presenters in Pars to try and garner their records enough attention to be covered by bigger names, using Windwhistler and Octavia as her main pluggers. It was rather unorthodox, and it probably wouldn’t have worked if the material wasn’t good, but it was.
She still wasn’t considering singing the material herself at this point, but that changed in 1977 - Windwhistler came down with the croup the day that they had a session scheduled, and not wanting to waste the money she already had spent scheduling studio time, she chose to try and sing the songs she already had lined up. Even then, it took a few months until she dcided to release the resulting recordings on her own name. She managed to get bigger hits with these songs than in her previous songs, and soon, she went from just songwriter to singer and songwriter.
Similarly, the band now was getting gigs in larger cities, and their sound had been changing as well. By 1980, Windwhistler had begun to write her own numbers, while Octavia set up a fourth act with Beauty Brass, and while still performing Majesty’s songs, she still left the band, which forced Majesty to reorganize. Now, Majesty had taken up the guitar, Lyra had settled on bass, Windwhistler and Moonstone remained on their instruments, and the band now had taken in Apple Split, Moonstone’s husband, as a second guitarist, and Octavia’s brother, Royal Riff, as the second keyboardist, while Arpeggio had stopped playing and concentrated on road management.
So, my submission for the
Rainbow Rocks event. The pose (and the band) is roughly based on this photo: