The following week I made another appearance at Meltdown, this time with my trio (Matt Ridley – Bass, Sam Nadel – Drums) playing tracks from Keepsakes and Here In The Ground. I was honoured to have Richard Thompson come down to say hello and give me a warm introduction.

After Meltdown I was straight into my role as Musical Director for an MA student production of ‘The Winter’s Tale’ at Central School of Speech and Drama (see previous blog). Another intensive but really rewarding period of rehearsals that threw up some interesting music and oppurtunities to hit things with hammers.

With the festival season now in full swing I’m gearing up for appearances at Cambridge at Sidmouth. Particularly excitied about performing at the Nic Jones Tribute gig on August 5th. Hope to see some of you there, and whatever you’re up to, have a great summer.

I’m off to think up an appropriate soundtrack for a bear-goreing.

On stage at Central during last year's production of 'Much Ado About Nothing'

Yesterday morning I headed over to Birmingham on the train to support Chris Wood at the Red Lion Folk Club. I’m a huge admirer of Chris’ writing and knew it was only a matter of time before our paths crossed at a gig. Somewhere between venues I managed to lose my capo, and Chris, after watching me frantically turning my rucksack upside down in the dressing room to find it and reassuring me by repeating the words ‘give it up mate, you’ve lost it, it’s gone’, lent me his for the duration of the gig. Cheers Chris!

I hoped that opening for Chris would mean playing to a listening audience, and I wasn’t disappointed. The concentration in the crowd during both our sets was almost palpable, a real treat to play to. Many thanks to Chris and Della who run the Red Lion and who generously fed, watered and housed me for the duration of my stay.

Although I’ve been winging it all the way, there are a couple of principles that have guided me along this trajectory. Firstly, I’ve always held fast to the idea that things will work out as long as you keep doing what you love. It’s really easy – particularly if you don’t seem to be making progress – to start trying to chase success as an end in itself, even if you become successful doing this, you might find you’ve ended up making music you don’t like to please someone else. Don’t compromise, people can smell bullshit a mile off.

The second principle is that it is the people you work with and your relationships with them that have the biggest impact on music-making. Although I have my musical preferences I’ve been happy to be led wherever there are people to inpsire me regardless of their  own musical bent, and that applies as much to listening to music as it does with performing and working with other musicians.

There are a lot of people responsible for helping me get to this current point, whether by working with me directly, inspiring me musically, or telling me to keep going when I didn’t feel like it. The list can never be exhaustive but there are a few people I want to thank that I didn’t get time to when I received the Folk Award:

Sam Sweeney, Sam Nadel, Matt Ridley, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Kit Massey, Charlie Stock, Joe Leach, Nitin Sawhney, Martin Simpson, Bellowhead, Neil Quinton and the folks at the Southbank Centre, the Aftershock Collective, Thom Atkinson, Beth Atkinson, Ross Shaw, Ollie Robinson, Mike Allison, Nick Smith, Mike Harding, Kellie While, Bob Harris, Sam Lee & Joe Buirski, Will Rees.

Lastly, and most importantly, thanks to the people that come out to see my gigs and buy my albums.

Low – Things We Lost In The Fire
Elliott Smith – From A Basement On A Hill
Iron & Wine – The Creek Drank The Cradle
Nick Cave – Lyre Of Orpheus / Abattoir Blues
Esbjorn Svensson Trio – Viaticum
Do Make Say Think – Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn
Richard Hawley – Coles Corner
Cinematic Orchestra – Ma Fleur
Tom Waits – Orphans
Radiohead – In Rainbows

It’s been so encouraging to play to new audiences up and down the country. Thanks so much to everyone who attended and enthused. We’ll be back again soon.

Backstage @ Bury Met - Sam Nadel, Sam Carter, Matt Ridley

Welcome to the new website. I’m going to be keeping you updated with all the goings on this end, so be sure to sign up to the newsletter and subscribe to the blog.

I had a wonderful gig at the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham on Tuesday night supporting Karine Polwart. Lovely listening audience and a nice venue.

In a packed train carriage on my way back to London, a suited middle-aged man sitting next to me began rapping down the phone to his girlfriend. I could not quite make out the subject matter of the rap, but the fact that he dropped his romantic lyrical bombs in public without a hint of self-consciousness was truly awe-inspiring.

In May Jon Boden put me in touch with Ben Naylor, a director and lecturer at Central School of Speech and Drama. Following a recommendation from Jon, Ben asked me to come in an act as Musical Director for a production of Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, the final performance by students on the MA course in Classical Acting. The play was to be set in Sicilian-style rural Italy circa 1920, so I got to do lots of research into Sicilian folk music and particularly enjoyed listening to the field recordings that Alan Lomax made in the area. Armed with a mandolin, a cajon, and both classical and steel-string guitars, I composed and performed live the dances and themes, arranged and sang a couple of Shakespeare-penned lyrics and even had a couple of lines as the minstrel character Balthazar.

I’ve also had the pleasure of playing with the Memory Band, a musical collective with an ever-changing line-up led by Stephen Cracknell. Instead of playing the Memory Band’s original material we played the soundtrack to the 70s horror film ‘The Wicker Man’, wailing our lewd Pagan incantations at Glastonbury, Supersonic Festival, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Green Man Festival. Thanks to those of you who remained clothed during the shows.

For solo guitarists at least, being unsung seems to go with the territory when you don’t sing. There are however many incredible players arranging traditional material for solo guitar; Pierre Bensusan, Tony McManus and Steve Baughman have provided me with loads of inspiration as well as listening enjoyment.

I discovered Steve Baughman’s album ‘The Angel’s Portion’ four or five years ago and fell in love with it. His playing is wonderfully percussive with a strong melodic presence and a sonorous, classical guitar-like tone. As well as arrangements of Celtic, English and Appalachian tunes he is a leading exponent of the use of banjo frailing technique on the guitar, a relatively recent development in guitar playing. ‘Sandy River Belle’ from his new album ‘The Almost Whisky Waltz’ is a great example of this.