Saltlines (album review here) is a unique project in more than one respect. It’s not often one of the most critically acclaimed writers on landscape collaborates with one of folk music’s most talented and innovative groups of musicians. It’s even rarer that the two parties continue to work together to produce a multidisciplinary experience that includes a stunning double album and a lengthy tour, music and spoken word, traditional songs and new compositions. Another unique aspect of the collaboration is how it came about. Usually, something like this would spring up from an idea formed by a band member who happened to be a fan of the book, or else by the author keen to work with her favourite bunch of musicians. But in the case of Saltlines, the idea of the collaboration came from Deborah Knight, wife of Peter and the band’s manager (and also, it seems, a one-woman publicity team, erudite spokesperson, creative muse and all-round cat-herder).
It is fitting, then, that when Folk Radio got the opportunity to talk to the band and Raynor Winn, it was Deborah who fielded the first question: how did the collaboration come about? Her answer, wide in scope and generous in detail, reads like an essay in the art of how to forge creative relationships and gives valuable insight into the range of factors that have to fall (or be nudged) into place before a project like this can even be started:
“In the folk tradition, stories get handed from person to person, and Saltlines came into being because Becky Marshall-Potter of FolkEast sent a copy of The Salt Path over to France during lockdown with a note urging me to read it. It felt as though the book was tapping me on the shoulder, as I had been strongly drawn to its cover and title a few months earlier but decided against buying it as I assumed, wrongly, that it would be a rather sad read because of the subject matter. On the basis of ‘it would be rude not to’, I started reading the book and was hooked. I had lived on a stretch of the south-west coast path in Cornwall for many years, my family still do; and it was fascinating to read about the bigger picture of this beautiful and unique trail; and at the heart of the story, this quite incredible ‘lost and found’ couple.
“The idea for Saltlines didn’t come to me immediately, but a few weeks later, when I was back in Cornwall walking my usual stretch of the coast path. Ray and Moth’s story had ignited a real desire to traverse the ‘Salt Path’ in its entirety, but I knew that wouldn’t be possible any time soon (if ever!), so that led to the thought of planning a tour for the Gigspanner Big Band around the route of the path, finding as many venues as possible on the coastlines of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset. In turn, that led to the idea of finding songs from those coasts, other stories from the Salt Path, and by the time I had finished my relatively short walk, I had ambitiously factored a collaboration with Ray into the mix.
“I knew that Hannah (Martin, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist) had read the book too, and so as soon as I got in, I sent an email to sound her out about the idea. I have checked the email in question, and it was sent at 15.02 on the 8th of December 2020, and Hannah responded with great enthusiasm at 15.16, her mind already whirring with ideas!
“The crucial element was Ray’s (Raynor Winn) involvement, and how do you approach a complete stranger with such a wild idea? I waited four weeks and sent a message via Twitter, not expecting a reply, or at least a ‘speak to my agent’ type of response. But no, Ray replied a few hours later, full of enthusiasm with an invitation to call her. I am just listening to an interview with Ray as it happens, and she is talking about ‘putting yourself in the way of hope’. That must have been where I was at the time, giving myself permission to hope.
“During the course of the first half of 2021, a lot of research of material took place, and the shortlisted songs were shared with Ray at a preliminary rehearsal in Devon in October 2021. It was our first real-life meeting with Ray and Moth (husband of Ray) as it happens. There had been several Zoom meetings up to that point. Ray listened, made notes, and recordings were shared so that she could then write new pieces in response to the songs. We didn’t get to hear those pieces of prose until April of this year at the first of the full line-up rehearsals, which was when the flow of the show started to take shape.
“In short, we have Becky Marshall-Potter of FolkEast to thank for planting the seed, and both her and John to thank for backing and supporting the Saltlines concept so that it could actually develop into the beautiful thing it has grown into. And Ray for penning such an incredible memoir, of course.
“Absorbing Ray and Moth into our life as friends as well as collaborators has been an additional gift. Our appreciation at having all these special people involved in the Saltlines project is boundless.”
It’s a testament to the power of Winn’s writing that it proved so profoundly and instantly inspirational to Deborah. Hannah Martin, who had already read the book prior to the album’s conception, agrees.
“A friend recommended it to me when I was feeling low during the first few weeks of lockdown. The world was reeling, it felt as though the foundations of our lives had collapsed. And so it was the perfect read to lift me out of my black mood, put things in perspective, reassure me that worlds do collapse, but can be remade. I read a lot, and there are many books that I enjoy. But, much more rarely, a book can change your life, and this was one of those.”
Inspiration is one thing, but the hard graft of researching and recording a collection of songs that complimented Raynor’s words was an entirely new challenge, especially with the world as it was at the time. As concertina and melodeon player John Spiers says:
“You have to bear in mind that the majority of this project was developed during lockdown or quite heavy restrictions, so a lot of the research for new material was done using online archives. In particular, the digitised archives of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library collected songs known as The Full English and a community run Cornish tune and dance website called Kesson.com were amazing resources.”
Peter Knight expands on the process of choosing the songs:
“Two of the songs I chose, The Padstow May Song and The Cadgwith Anthem, were very familiar to me as both appeared in Steeleye Span’s repertoire, but how can you miss them out of a project that has the south-west coast path at its heart? The endeavour was obviously to give them a very different feel, and so I picked up on the line ‘the beauty of Kashmir’ from Cadgwith Anthem to give the opening section a Kashmiri feel. Phil studied slide guitar in India, and obviously that was going through my mind too. For Padstow, I added a French tune called ‘Voici le Mois de Mai’ which is also about the first of May. That was to give the ‘advancing’ young men that are in France something to dance to!”
But the songs are only part of Saltlines. A huge part of the album’s highly individual spirit comes from Raynor Winn’s words. Her prose has a positive, infectious quality that really emerges when read aloud. This, as much as the songs, is what carves out a place for Saltlines within the oral tradition.
“I love words,” Raynor enthuses. “The way they sit together and roll around each other, how one single dramatic word can sing when underscored by the quiet, calm tones of simpler words. I write in patterns; in my head I’m painting pictures with the words. And words are infectious; who doesn’t love a good story? Words spoken with rhythm and timing imprint themselves on our memories in an almost magnetic way – that’s why we remember a song for decades when the conversations are long forgotten. Isn’t that what our oral traditions are based on, that idea of holding a moment in time then passing it on?”
There seems to be a very distinct kind of musicality in her words too, something very human, very rhythmic and movement-based. Various members of the band noticed this early on.
“Definitely,” says John. “There’s a certain pace about the words which lend themselves to walking pace rhythms, and there are a lot of them in the music we’ve ended up developing for the project although there was no conscious decision to do that. In the Swedish tunes tradition they have a whole genre of music called gånglåt which are tunes designed to be played while walking.”
Peter agrees: “Absolutely, although there was no conscious decision to respond. To be playing the music, and also watching Ray deliver her words, watching her movements, is like playing with another musician.”
“We noticed from the first rehearsal that Ray has a great sense of rhythm which made the combination of words and music come together organically, at times effectively conjuring up the rhythm of walking the path,’ says multiinstrumentalist Phillip Henry, while Winn simply adds: ‘I have walked a lot – maybe I unconsciously write to the rhythm of walking.”
Raynor’s walking was born from hardship, and the book transcends that hardship. Was this something the band sought to reflect in their songs? And more generally, why (and how) do they think creative practices help get us through periods of difficulty?
“When I was searching for songs,’ says Hannah, ‘I was looking generally for folk songs collected in the relevant area that had a good tune or lyrics – but of course, themes that were relevant to Ray’s story did jump out – this was particularly the case for Shower and Sunshine, and the idea of overcoming great challenges crops up a few times in the material (notably The Isle of France). I think creative practices can be so helpful during hard times. As an expression of our inner selves, they can help us process what we are going through – perhaps especially when those emotions are hard to express in other ways. They give us focus, purpose when we are lost, and views of other worlds when we need to escape.”
John’s approach was subtly different: “I definitely made a conscious effort to seek out songs that chimed with subjects touched on in the book, songs that had elements of hope, nature and love. I think that whether you’re working on a project or consumed in the art of other people it tends to be all you think about for that time, you tend to leave everything else about the world behind and that can give you a space to recover.”
“Walking a long distance is a totally immersive experience,” says Raynor. “Hours pass, and you fall into an almost meditative state of just being. The creative process has a very similar effect, it allows us to become completely lost in the moment, to be so absorbed in the creative process that everything else slips away. There’s something incredibly restorative in that.”
Saltlines and The Salt Path are concerned with a particular and very special landscape, namely the south-west coast of England. Is there something about that part of the world that inspires songs and stories? Raynor thinks so.
“The south west is steeped in history and tradition, where every headland and cove holds the stories of people influenced by their connection to the sea. This coastline is a liminal place, the meeting place between land and sea; it inspires different ways of living and fires the imagination. Those who have spent their lives here hold something of that shifting, illusive quality of light and water and their songs and stories reflect that.”
Hannah’s links with the area are perhaps more personal than those of her bandmates: “I was lucky enough to grow up in a fisherman’s cottage overlooking the sea in Brixham, south Devon. So I have always felt a special connection with this part of the world. But for me it is a very personal special-ness – my whole life has been lived so close to the coast path, from beach birthday parties to Christmas swims to daily glances out the window. Sitting on my mum’s bed watching the winter waves conquer the breakwater. But besides this personal connection, there is certainly a wider connection that people feel. I think growing up next to the sea has a profound effect on the psyche and I would struggle to live away from it. You automatically orientate yourself by it; you know that, on one side, here is the mad bustle of daily life – but over there, in the waves, that’s where everything stops. The sea doesn’t care about our petty squabbles and little lives. It sets everything in perspective. The space that creates in your brain allows time for creativity and inspiration.”
The area has its own distinctive identity or set of identities, but like many traditions, it has curious and perhaps unexpected links to other cultures. One of these links, which John was keen to explore, was the affinity between the Celtic cultures of Cornwall and Brittany. The song Ten Thousand Miles has a noticeably Breton flavour.
“Ten Thousand Miles is a very widespread song in the English tradition,’ he explains. ‘But I’ve never heard a version so concise and so hypnotic in melody. The version I sing is actually from Somerset, but I had the links between Cornish and Breton at the back of my mind and the melody does have that same hypnotic dance tune quality that Breton tunes have.’ The Breton influence appears elsewhere too. ‘The Cornish tune Three Knights is one used to dance something called a Kabm Pemp (translation: five-step) which has close similarities with some dances from Brittany.”
We move on to the live aspect. I’m interested to know if touring the album was different in any way to a more conventional tour. And did Raynor effectively become part of the band?
“Saltlines is very different to a normal Gigspanner Big Band gig,’ says Peter. ‘It’s not a regular format with separate songs, introductions and applause. It’s a journey that lasts 90 minutes. During that 90 minutes, audience and band experience a lovely state of being. A 90 minute emotional, thought-provoking excursion. No one wants to break the spell until the end. And yes, Ray is part of the band, and she and Moth have become part of our life. They are an inspiration on so many levels.”
Phillip and John both make a point of agreeing that Raynor is most definitely a part of the band, and Phillip is keen to point out that this way touring is both novel and rewarding: “This does feel very different to a conventional tour. The atmosphere of the show is different, it builds more subtly. There is not much space for applause in the first half, and the audience seems to build up excitement as the show goes on. By the end of the show they can’t wait to get to their feet and It feels somehow a more positive and life affirming show overall.”
One of the tour’s high points was a show at Cornwall’s Minack Theatre, a dramatic outdoor performance space perched on a cliff above the Atlantic. The band agreed that it was something special.
“It was a huge highlight for me,” says Peter. “The venue is extraordinary. The weather was perfect. The sound inspiring. The load in and out an absolute nightmare, and people wonder why I work with young musicians! Kidding. Next time we’ll hire some humpers. Honestly, I loved everything about that day.”
Raynor concurs. “The Minack’s such a beautiful location and felt like the perfect venue for Saltlines. To be right on the coast with the sound of the sea against the cliffs and the gulls calling overhead was quite magical.”
You get the feeling from talking to the band and hearing about the tour that they are still relishing the joy of each other’s company, of being able to perform and record together after the long Covid-enforced hiatus. As John says, “There is nothing that can replace that immediacy of working together, thrashing out musical ideas, getting inspiration from each other. That’s how this band really works best, I think.”
“It’s great to be out there doing gigs again,’ agrees Peter. ‘I hadn’t forgotten what it was like, but I had forgotten how much I liked doing them. Playing with the Gigspanner Big Band is very comfortable for me as a musician. I’m in safe hands.”
And has the strangeness of recent times changed how he works?
“My relationship with the creative process hasn’t changed, although it’s forever changing. Covid, lockdowns and weirdness hasn’t changed my endeavours as a musician. Better to be playing with an audience than playing alone. And yes, I appreciate more and more where the music has led me. I’m so grateful that it has led me to Saltlines.”
Gigspanner Big Band & Raynor Winn October 2022 Tour
Remaining Dates:
Sat 29 October – The Landmark Theatre, Teddington
Sun 30 October – Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Mon 31 October – The Stables Theatre, Milton Keynes
Tickets and further details here: https://www.gigspanner.com/live
Order the album here: https://www.gigspanner.com/shop/details/saltlines