Looking at things with the benefit of hindsight I can see what looks like a clear and carefree path leading from the decision I made to move down to London to pursue a career in music in 2004 and receiving the Horizon Award for Best Newcomer at the BBC Folk Awards earlier this week. Truth be told, that journey has been one of frustration, doubt, anxiety, and bloody hard work.

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.

I’ve seen a good few ‘albums of the decade’ lists kicking about and thought I’d throw my own in. I tend to change my mind about these things every five minutes so this isn’t intended to be definitive. It was judged on the following criteria – Every so often I forcefully eject the entire contents of my iPod and vow only to replace it with music that hasn’t been on there before. I find it a good way of discovering new things and not getting too stuck in listening habits. There are however always some albums that I can’t seem to do without and which stubbornly maintain their place in my heart and ears. In no particular order, here are ten albums from the last ten years that have caused me to flout my own iPod laws:

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

We had great fun recording a live session for Radio 3 yesterday. Minor disaster on the way there – whilst negotiating public transport with a double bass in tow, Matt (Ridley) managed to snap the screw responsible for holding the spike in the bottom of his bass. This meant he had to play the whole session yesterday with his bass on the wheel he transported it in on. We built makeshift chocks and I tried not to laugh.