Martin Simpson

Martin Simpson ranks among the most prominent figures illustrating the deep ties linking United Kingdom traditional folk with American roots music, thanks to his accomplished work on guitar and banjo together with his roles as vocalist and composer. His personal trajectory embodies that transatlantic link. Originating in England, he relocated to the United States toward the end of the 1980s. Before the move he had issued multiple solo recordings leaning toward Celtic folk and had joined forces with British folk-rock stalwarts including June Tabor and the Albion Band; once in America the change of base enabled him to take in distinctive stateside guitar approaches while maintaining a steady flow of recordings both in tandem with others and as a solo performer, highlighted by such acclaimed releases as 2007’s Prodigal Son, 2011’s Purpose & Grace, and 2024’s Skydancers, each fusing multiple folk lineages through technically brilliant musicianship.

Simpson entered the world in the northern English Humberside community of Scunthorpe, picked up the guitar at twelve, and was performing in neighborhood pubs by fourteen. Already established on the local scene by the early 1970s, he cut his first album, Golden Vanity, for Bill Leader’s Trailer Records. Rather than committing strictly to either newly written contemporary folk material or its longstanding traditional counterparts, Golden Vanity drew from both sources, placing Dylan interpretations next to centuries-old ballads. Throughout the latter half of the 1970s he toured alongside Steeleye Span and the Albion Band while launching an extended association with June Tabor that encompassed appearances on her solo projects and joint billing on 1981’s A Cut Above. The three solo albums that followed between 1981 and 1986 likewise mixed contemporary and traditional selections. Shanachie Records took him on shortly after his 1987 move to the U.S.; that year also brought the duet album True Dare or Promise with his wife Jessica. His initial Shanachie effort, 1989’s Leaves of Life, inaugurated another stretch of notable work that continued through the follow-ups When I Was on Horseback, A Closer Walk with Thee, and Red Roses, the last two again made with Jessica. In the mid-1990s the Simpsons performed with the Band of Angels and recorded for Rhiannon, Red House, and Water Lily Acoustic.

Bramble Briar, a fresh anthology of British traditional songs, appeared in 2001, succeeded by Righteousness and Humidity, a blues-inflected collection shaped by the Deep South and featuring Steeleye Span’s Rick Kemp. Kind Letters marked a return to English folk in 2005 and was followed by the prize-winning Prodigal Son in 2007, the stylistically wide-ranging True Stories in 2009, and the all-star Purpose & Grace in 2011. After the layered arrangements of Purpose & Grace, Simpson reduced the instrumental palette to banjo, guitar, and voice alone on 2013’s Vagrant Stanzas. Remaining exploratory, he turned next to a group project: Murmurs (2015) paired him with Nancy Kerr on fiddle and Andy Cutting on squeezebox, the three musicians supplying their own reading of traditional numbers such as “The Plains of Waterloo.” Solo work resumed with 2017’s Trials & Tribulations, produced by Andy Bell (Kate Rusby, Teenage Fanclub, Bellowhead) and featuring Molly Simpson’s first recorded vocal. Extending his pattern of collaboration, 2019’s Rooted once more showcased Nancy Kerr and Andy Cutting among additional contributors; Topic Records issued the album and also released 2020’s Home Recordings, a collection captured during the COVID-19 lockdown. Skydancers, arriving in 2024, presented Simpson in a confident program of original material, eighteenth-century broadside ballads, and reinterpretations of songs by Woody Guthrie and June Tabor.