We meet with the ever-generous Martin Simpson to discuss Skydancers, his bumper new double album on Topic Records, plus some of the tools of the trade.
Skydancers (reviewed here), Martin Simpson’s wonderful new solo album, is in many ways in keeping with his last project, Nothing but Green Willow with Thomm Jutz, in that the music is almost economical, with nary a wasted note. “Nothing but Green Willow was fantastically economical in many ways,” Martin agrees. “When I think about how we did it and how long it took to do it, it was economical. But then I was straight back into this solo record, which is very much a creature of two halves. First you have the live album, which I’m absolutely delighted with. I’m never happier than when playing live, and I’ve never felt more on top of that than I do at the moment, which is really interesting. So there’s the live stuff and then the other CD, which is me and my pals.”
The amount of guest musicians on the studio album is modest, but the quality is top-drawer, with bass stalwart Ben Nicholls, guitar virtuoso Louis Campbell, Andy Cutting and Liz Hanks, joined by backing singers and pedal steel legend Greg Leisz. “It was just lovely to do and they’re all such good musicians,” Martin smiles. “I got Greg to play pedal steel through Jackson Browne, because Jackson and I get on really well and I really like what he does. So I asked Jackson if he could sing harmonies on [Woody Guthrie song] Deportee, like he did on Louisiana 1927 from Prodigal Son. But the issue was it was in exactly the key he would sing in, so there was nowhere for him to go. However, Greg plays in Jackson’s band, so Jackson recorded Greg on Deportee and New Harmony, which was great, because he’s the boss.”
“If there were more Chris Packhams about, I would feel more confident of the survival of the world.”
We move on to talk about the title track, which is an important song both on the album and in general. “The song is a part of everything that was going on at the time of making this record,” Martin tells us. “Skydancers was a commission and I was incredibly delighted to write it for Chris Packham; he is a very important human being, not just as a television presenter, but as a man who speaks really well for humanity. If there were more Chris Packhams about, I would feel more confident of the survival of the world.”
When it comes to the commission, Packham was loose in his brief, simply wanting a song for Hen Harrier Day. “It was an exciting thing to do,” Martin smiles. “When I started writing I only had the first half of the first line, which I got from Richard Hawley, who is my next door neighbour. We were sitting out the back of my house, talking guitars and having a nice hang, and there was this avian activity going on. Richard is always writing and thinking, and he looked at me and said ‘the bird completes the skyline’, and I said to him ‘you bastard!’ and he said ‘it’s alright, you can have it’. So I had that line and wrote the song from there.”
The song is serious, but Martin was careful to balance the negatives with the positives. “I went out to this place called Ringinglow,” he explains. “It’s a grouse moor that should have hen harriers, but it doesn’t because, even though they’re a red-list endangered species, the people who own grouse moors actually trap, shoot, poison and stamp on hen harriers. It’s shocking and it doesn’t have to be like this. We’ve demonstrated that; the second verse talks about peregrine falcons and red kites, which were both on their way out. They went from twenty pairs of red kites in mid-wales to way in excess of ten thousand pairs and almost every city with a decent church has peregrine nests, which is fantastic.”
Another stand-out track on the album is Tom Sherman’s Barroom, a powerful version of a traditional song. “I’ve had versions of that song in my head since I was about thirteen,” Martin laughs. “The first I heard was The Streets of Laredo, and then there was The Dying Crapshooter’s Blues and St. James Infirmary. There are so many versions of it, and over the years, I’ve recorded a load of them, but I just thought this was a fabulous, strong version, and I love the fact that it was unaccompanied. I heard Tracy Schwarz from the New York City Ramblers sing it on an Elektra recording when I was about fifteen, so it’s always been there and it was really interesting to arrange it for banjo and then add the cello and electric guitar. It was a joy to do and a joy to sing; it’s a fantastic piece of folk lyricism.”
Roger’s Cascade is another banjo tune, albeit lighter-hearted, a fun number written for Fylde’s Roger Bucknall. “He didn’t want me to advertise the fact that he did [banjo repairs]!” Martin cackles. “He’s been a friend of mine since 1975, which is a scary thought, and of course, he’s a great guitar builder, but he’s also a great engineer and woodworker. I’d bought this Gibson Mastertone plectrum banjo, which I’d wanted since I was a kid, but not as a plectrum [four strings with a long scale], but as a five-string. So I called Roger and asked him how we might go about getting the parts, or should we have done in the States, and he investigated it and just said ‘I’m going to do it’. I was so delighted and it’s a fantastic instrument. I’ve also still got one Romero [banjo], the one I bought myself for my sixtieth birthday, because having more than one Romero isn’t fair on the rest of the world.” We can’t help but get stuck into more instrument chat, with the story of the main guitar used on the album being particularly interesting and sounding more like an old folk narrative itself. “The studio stuff is mostly played on a 1936 Martin,” Martin explains. “It was a C2 Martin, which was an archtop, and it was re-topped as a flattop by TJ Thompson, who is the god of Martin repairs in the States. It was actually brought into a dealership in 1972 by a rag and bone man and I think the headstock had been broken off. It was then bought and kept by a professional guitarist for thirty years, who had it converted to a flattop, because the archtop Martins were not actually very good. However, the back and sides and neck were all good and it was a Brazilian rosewood guitar, and it now has an OM-42 style top on it, which is great. So I mainly used that one for the studio work and the Taran for all of the live, because I’ve just never had a guitar that sounds as good on stage as the Taran does.”
‘Skydancers’ is available now on double CD/vinyl/download/stream via Topic Records (April 12th, 2024).
Order here: https://martinsimpson.lnk.to/skydancers
Tour Dates: https://martinsimpson.com/gigs/