Green Linnet

Martin Simpson’s playing deploys a control of pace and dynamics that touches the heart, like the best music, irrespective of whether the listener has a bit of Lincolnshire, Mississippi or Ganges beneath their manicured or careworn nails. In his playing he focuses upon economy and how to make each note pay. Listen to him playing now and you will hear how he measures not only the impact and length of each note, but, tellingly how he delivers the space that frames each note.

With Prodigal Son Martin Simpson has made what is undoubtedly his finest recording to date. The album reflects the full breadth of his creativity, drawing on both British and American traditions as well as including several of his own outstanding compositions. Many of Martin’s good friends and favorite artists appear with him on the album, including Jackson Browne who adds a perfect harmony vocal to Martin’s beautiful version of randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927”. Kate Rusby and Kellie While sing sublime harmonies on two of the tracks – “Never Any Good” [Martin’s song for his father] and “Batchelor’s Hall”. The album is further enhanced by Danny Thompson on bass, Andy Cutting on accordion, Alistair Anderson on concertina and Northumbrian pipes and Barry Philips on cello.

Simpson was born in May 1953 in Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire, a particularly fertile tilth for English traditional music as Percy Grainger and generations thereafter discovered. By the age of 12 he was playing guitar, by 13 banjo and at 14 he made his first paid appearance. After leaving school in 1970 and abandoning a half-hearted stab at further education, he threw it all in to become a professional musician in 1971. Like his friend and namesake, Martin Carthy, he still plays the British folk club circuit as eagerly as the grandest music rooms of the world.

It was back in 1975 that the singer Barbara Dickson recommended Simpson to Bill Leader who went to see him perform. It led to his first solo album, Golden Vanity, (1976) for Leader's Trailer label. Word got out quickly and within the year he was supporting Steeleye Span. By 1977 he was accompanying June Tabor, whose previous guitarist had been the legendary Nic Jones. Their remarkable decade-long partnership produced a triptych of highly influential albums in A Cut Above (1980), Abyssinians (1983) and Aqaba (1988) and a body of performance pieces that never received commercial release. Martin moved to the United States in 1987 but it was not to be the end of their partnership. He guested as accompanist on her An Echo of Hooves (2003) and in her television special in the BBC4 Sessions concert performance series (2004).

Simpson has continually added new colours to his palette, expanding on his primary musical interests in British, Anglo-American and Afro-American traditional forms and building on the foundations and expressiveness laid down by Harry Cox, Blind Willie Johnson, Big Joe Williams, Percy Webb and Blind Willie McTell. Gradually he found a singing voice to complement his voice on the guitar. An influx of songs from Bob Dylan, Bob Franke, John B Spencer, John Tams and Richard Thompson, not to mention his own compositions on albums such as Bootleg USA (1999) and Righteousness & Humidity (2003), showed other sides of his musical character.

Still, the basic rule of engagement remains: balancing the traditional and the contemporary. That said, with The Bramble Briar (2001), he concentrated on British story-telling of traditional kinds, including material from the likes of Peter Bellamy, Cecilia Costello, Louis Killen and Cyril Tawney.

Much of Martin's music reflects the places where he has lived. Time spent in England and the United States underpins his art, yet years ago he learned to apply the artistry of experience in different contexts. A Closer Walk With Thee (1993) explored the Christian Hymnal tradition as planted and cross-fertilized on American soil. Later he collaborated with musicians such as the great Wu Man of the Pudong School of Pipa (Chinese Lute), with whom he recorded Music for the Motherless Child (1996). The all-instrumental Cool & Unusual (1997) partnered him with members of the Malagasy band, Tarika Sammy, Kelly Joe Phelps and that musical saucier, David Lindley for one hell of a feast.

In early 2004, seasoned Simpson-watchers noted him attaining hitherto unsuspected artistic heights with new levels of intensity and economy. He put it down, in part, to taking delivery of a new banjo from Ron Saul and rediscovering the place of the banjo in his guitar-playing. After one truly transfiguring concert in Nettlebed in Oxfordshire, the club's master of ceremonies suggested a group-hug for the guitaristically shell-shocked whilst the rest of the audience concentrated on coming down from a state of music-induced euphoria.

Martin’s career has included collaborations on stage and recordings with Kelly Joe Phelps, Danu, Cara Dillon, David Lindley, Roy Bailey, Dick Gaughan and David Hidalgo (of Los Lobos). He’s a regular nominee at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and received the Musician Of The Year title in both 2002 and 2004. Bramble Briar was named Album Of The Year in 2002.