Later this month, on September 25th, Martin Simpson will release his new album ‘Some Kind Of Jubilee’ via Topic Records, a label that’s been his musical home for the past two decades. While all albums mark a milestone in any musician’s journey, this one is special: it marks 50 years since the release of his debut album, Golden Vanity (recorded by Bill Leader and released on Trailer in1976), and, in his own words, captures “my best work to date.”
For this milestone, Simpson has pulled out all the stops, recording the album at Jackson Browne’s impressive Groovemaster studio in Santa Monica and completing it in Yorkshire.
The cast of musicians he has assembled is no less than impressive; the heavy hitters include Greg Leisz (Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell) on pedal steel guitar and Zac Hobbs (Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Emmylou Harris) on guitar. They are joined by names our regular readers will be very familiar with: Liz Hanks (Richard Hawley, Liam Gallagher) on cello, Louis Campbell (Sam Sweeney, Sam Lee) on guitar, and one of folk music’s most sought-after sidemen, Ben Nicholls (Seth Lakeman, Cara Dillon) on double bass.
Today, we’re very pleased to be sharing a new video from Martin, a special solo rendition of Bob Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, recorded at Turnstone Guitars, who have been meticulously handcrafting beautiful instruments in England for over a decade, who better than to play one.
The orbits of this album intersect with so many others, as you’d expect from an artist who, as stated in these pages, is “still operating at the highest level anywhere in the world.”
Among those orbits are, of course, Dylan. Leisz, playing pedal steel, also performed on Dylan’s Shadow Kingdom. Dylan recorded more than once at Groovemaster studio, including 2012’s Tempest; and Martin covered Love Minus Zero, No Limit on Golden Vanity, the second track on Dylan’s landmark 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home, the one on which he famously split his sound between electric rock and acoustic folk. That was also a break-up song, as is Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.
Martin shared:
“Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” is a cover of Bob Dylan’s bitter farewell and final dismissal of a failed relationship. As one of my earliest influences, I recorded this when I was 17 on a very limited-edition LP for my friends and family. It is illuminating to hear that now, my fingers were more proficient than my ears… After playing it in standard tuning a couple of years ago, I decided to play it in CGCFCD for the exercise, and it made me happy.
Keep an eye on KLOF Mag as we’ll have more on Martin very soon.
Pre-Order Some Kind of Jubilee
Tour Dates: https://martinsimpsonmusic.com/gigs/