Earlier this year we shared news of Saltlines, The Gigspanner Big Band‘s collaborative new project with Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path, The Wild Silence (and Landlines, out later this year). Winn’s moving and inspiring memoirs start with walking the South West Coast Path in its entirety, an impulsive response to unexpected circumstances which left her and her husband, Moth, homeless.
The Salt Path and its sequel The Wild Silence have sold over a million copies worldwide. They have won global praise for their ‘against all odds’ uplifting message, and their frank exploration of the reality of homelessness.
Saltlines offers a portrait of the South West Coast Path in Old Songs and New Words, including traditional songs and tunes that have been collected and left behind by the likes of Cecil Sharp (1859 to 1924) co-founder of the English Folk Dance & Song Society.
You can hear ‘Ten Thousand Miles’, one of the songs from the show below. Band member John Spiers has also written a fascinating insight into the song and project.
Don’t miss the debut tour of Saltlines that follows the route almost in its entirety; the tour of the South West Coast Path will start in Taunton and finishing in Poole before heading to Folk East in August for a special festival appearance (dates and ticket links below).
John Spiers on Saltlines and Ten Thousand Miles
During the depths of lockdown, the Gigspanner Big Band had a zoom meeting to discuss the idea of a new project to collaborate with Raynor Winn, the author of The Salt Path, a best-selling book about a life-changing walk along the entire coastline of the South West of England. The plan was to find traditional songs from that area that had resonances with aspects of the book, so the first place I looked was the amazing online database of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library Full English Project. The beauty of this website is that you can search for folk songs and tunes on a map, and I found this charming version of Ten Thousand Miles there.
The song was collected by Cecil Sharp on Christmas Eve 1904 from a lady called Mrs Glover who lived in Huish Episcopi, Somerset, about 13 miles from Bridgwater. It’s a song well known to the folk revival, made famous by the Nic Jones version on his album The Noah’s Ark Trap. The first thing that drew me to Mrs Glover’s version was the melody which is markedly different to the well-known one; it’s in the minor key and has a kind of hypnotic feel, reminiscent of Breton dance music. I also loved the down-to-earth colloquial language the song is sung in … like the words of a real person. Finally, the subject of the song really resonated with Raynor’s book for me; it is about loss and travelling huge distances for a love that will never die. It’s only four verses long, and it gets straight to the point.
The track is not my arrangement; all I brought was the song and my thoughts about it being slightly hypnotic. Peter Knight came up with this lovely plucked fiddle line that loops around and sits behind the melody, and then the rest of the band jammed until we came to the arrangement, which starts with a tiptoe which gets more and more intense as the words go from the wistful to images of the Earth crashing into the sun.
Saltines Tour Dates
July 2022
08 Taunton, The Brewhouse Theatre (Tickets)
09 Ilfracombe, The Landmark Theatre (Tickets)
10 St Endellion, Port Isaac, St Endellion Church (Tickets)
12 Falmouth, The Princess Pavilions (Tickets)
13 Lyme Regis, Marine Theatre (Tickets)
14 Exmouth, The Pavilion (Tickets)
16 Porthcurno, The Minack Theatre (Subject to weather) (Tickets)
17 The Lighthouse Theatre, Poole (Tickets)
August
20 Folk East, Glemham Hall, Suffolk (Tickets)