Martin Simpson

Successfully fusing elements of blues, gospel, old-timey music and English folk might seem like an impossible task for anyone to undertake. But it’s all in a day’s work for Mr Simpson, reckons David Mead.

- David Mead

Not only has Martin Simpson spent time researching country blues, he’s also lived and travelled extensively in the USA, absorbing the culture at first hand – an experience that has resulted in him authoring classic songs such as Love Never Dies, honouring the spirit of Delta blues while capturing the essence of the best of this country’s traditional music. Nominated for countless awards and recognised as one of the best acoustic slide players around today, he’s also covered songs by his heroes, including a hauntingly beautiful version of Blind Willie Johnson’s I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes from his fabulous 2003 album Righteousness And Humidity.

We begin by asking how his all-encompassing attitude to many different forms of music began in the first place…

“I was very fortunate in that there was a parallel and integral nature to the folk scene when I started. I would go to my local folk club and see Martin Carthy one week and then I would see Mike Cooper with his National guitars the next week. I might see Stefan Grossman in a month and then I might see Finbar Furey playing the pipes, which was, as far as I’m concerned, like seeing Jimi Hendrix. There was all this extraordinary availability of fantastic guitar players playing everything from morris tunes to the darkest experimental blues, so it was a great time to be me.

“But it’s fair to say that getting the banjo opened a door to me for this whole thing of altered tunings. Obviously, you get the guitar and you put it in D and you put it in G and that opens a massive door to old-time fingerpicking and blues and what have you. But then the moment that you introduce the banjo, you’re immediately into the realm of modal tunings: Gsus4, Cadd9 and DADGAD – all those which now are universally accepted as guitar tunings, they’re all banjo tunings.