Off the Shelf with Martin Simpson

Martin Simpson recently released his bumper new double album, Skydancers, his twenty-fourth album and his twelfth for Topic Records. In his review of the album, KLOF Mag’s Glenn Kimpton described it as an excellent record from a master of his craft. He went on to interview Martin here, where they talked about the album, nature conservation, and the tools of the trade—guitars and banjos.

As well as being our current Artist of the Month, Martin is our latest ‘Off the Shelf’ guest, in which we ask artists to present objects from a shelf or shelves from their home and talk about them. Before we dive in, take a listen to New Harmony, on which Martin shares:

“The folk tradition can often supply you with the song you are struggling to write. My friend, Josh Michaell, of Mill Valley, CA, likes to find songs for me. He is really good at it. He sent me the recordings of the late Craig Johnson, who was an immensely talented old time musician. He was a great fiddle and banjo player but equally fluent on the guitar. His repertoire included renditions of Skip James’ blues, which are very hard to sing and play convincingly, in addition to dance tunes and songs from Riley Puckett and other stars of the 1920’s recording boom. From time to time, Craig would find it necessary to write a song and he proved to be a major, if not regular, songwriter. Josh brought ‘New Harmony’ to my attention and it is, I think, a beautiful depiction of a Winter road trip through Indiana. It is classic Americana. Craig only made one record, which was released in 2009. He died that same year. He wrote ‘New Harmony’ during and after a Winter road trip through Indiana, thinking of his father and grandfather, the latter having been born in New Harmony, IN.“

Off the Shelf with Martin Simpson

Photo of my Grandmother

Shelves in my world are multi-purpose, and the photograph is of my grandmother and was taken in Shanghai in the 1890s. My grandfather was at that time a tea planter, which led to my father living briefly in South Africa shortly after the Boer war.

Skull of a Brown Pelican

I have always been fascinated by the natural world. My father introduced me to birds, bugs and flowers. We would go out into the countryside on his pushbike, which had a small seat on the crossbar and a leather belt of military origin, which served as stirrups for me. I collected all manner of things, from beetles to roadkill birds, and I still have a few prize possessions from around the world. This is the skull of a Brown Pelican, which was given to me by my friend David Grimes when I lived in Santa Cruz in California. David wrote the song “Born Human”.

Felted Birds

The little felted birds were gifts from our lovely friend Ade, who is well-known as a face painter at Folk Festivals. She has made hundreds of excited children into temporary tigers, butterflies and flowers. The birds are a wren and a goldcrest.

The jars contain wasp nests from inside our garden shed. It is a total joy to watch a wasp construct a paper home, and I spent many happy times doing that when I lived in the States. These nests were built by stealth and only discovered when they were complete.

Boxsets

A small selection of boxed sets from between 1967 and now. The Electra FolkBox was hugely important to me in my mid to late teens, spanning the breadth of the American folk scene as it was. The wooden box contains an anthology of gospel records, Goodbye Babylon, lavishly packaged with cotton bolls. It’s all treasure.

<a href="https://dusttodigital.bandcamp.com/album/goodbye-babylon-2">Goodbye, Babylon by Various Artists</a>

Ballad Books

On my parents’ advice, I very briefly attended teacher training college at Bretton Hall in Yorkshire, now home to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. On receiving my grant money, I bought The Oxford Book of Ballads and a yellow Telecaster with a Strat neck. I left after two terms. Ballad Books are very much a treasure to me, and there are some very valuable and precious examples here. The Bronson’s Traditional Tunes of The Child Ballads is a fantastic set. I got three volumes in Bloomington, Indiana, in the 80’s, and my friend Terry found the missing volume on eBay in Germany.

The two necks on display are a Gibson Mastertone Plectrum banjo neck from 1925 and a Rickenbacker fretted guitar neck from the 1930s. The excellent Roger Bucknall at Fylde Guitars built me a perfect 5-string replacement for the 4-string neck.

Photo of my father with his dog, Kim

Those of you who know my songs will be aware that my father was born in 1899. I have some wonderful photographs from his life many years before I was born. This is him with his dog Kim, taken in the 1930s. He clearly put considerable time into training Kim. In our family collection of bugs was a Dytiscus diving beetle, which my father collected when Kim dived into a ditch.

The ukulele was given to me by Marc Eisenberg of San Luis Obispo in California. It’s made of a collection of highly storied woods, including ancient redwood stump wood and Spruce from the construction of Howard Hughe’s Spruce Goose aeroplane.

It will not surprise anyone to know that I have a large number of books about the guitar. The instrument has been central to my life for 58 years. In my lifetime, it has been the most widespread and popular instrument in the world in its many different forms. I have owned a lot of guitars over the years and I have worked with some of the most cutting-edge builders in the acoustic guitar world. To have had a part in expanding the possibilities of what a guitar can do has been a joy and a privilege.