Hi Folks
I am very happy to annouce that Martin Simpson is appearing @ The Milngavie Folk Club, The Fraser Centre, Douglas St, Milngavie G62 6PE on Friday 18th November 2011.
Doors: 7.30pm

Tickets: £15

Tickets Available: www.milngaviefolkclub.co.uk, Milngavie Bookshop, Douglas St or Art Forum, Station Rd (Both Milngavie)
Phone 07743885991 (Reservations Only)

Martin Simpson Biography
Martin has been nominated an astounding 23 times in the eleven years of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards - more than any other performer - with 9 consecutive years as nominee for Musician of The Year, which he has won twice. 2008 saw an incredible 5 nominations for "Prodigal Son' and 2 wins, whilst in 2010 he had an unprecedented 6 nominations for his CD, "True Stories" and a win for Best Traditional Track, "Sir Patrick Spens".

For many years the multi-talented singer-guitarist-songwriter Martin Simpson was a 'musician's musician' to be found just outside of the spotlight as he provided peerless musical support to some great folk artists while also making acclaimed solo albums dominated by his superb guitar playing.

Simpson spent several years working in America, but on his return to the UK in 2002 he began to focus on his own career and was rewarded with honours at the BBC Folk Awards (for albums including Prodigal Son and True Stories) and appeared on TV shows like 'Later With Jools Holland'.

His new CD, Purpose + Grace marks a bold and confident step for Simpson. Building upon the strengths of his previous albums, he conceived the whole project over a number of months and invited some of his favourite musicians to bring their stellar talents to the recording sessions and recruited three great singers - Dick Gaughan, June Tabor and newcomer Fay Hield - to share the lead vocals on the recording.

The album's central thread is of course Martin's guitar and banjo accompaniment, but there are new sounds in his instrumental palette such as the lap slide on 'Barbara Ellen', while Richard Thompson contributes his peerless electric guitar to three tracks, BJ Cole, Jon Boden and Will Pound add pedal steel, fiddle and harmonica and Andy Cutting and Andy Seward provide the musical foundation along with Keith Angel

Purpose + Grace takes its very apposite title from the great American songwriter Yip Harburg (composer of 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow', 'Brother Can You Spare A Dime' and 'Only A Paper Moon') - "I am one of the last of a small tribe of troubadours who still believe that life is a beautiful and exciting journey with a purpose and grace well worth singing about."

The material shifts from Anglo-American ballads, Scots and English traditional songs to new compositions from Bruce Springsteen, Richard Thompson, the afore mentioned Yip Harburg and Martin Simpson. There is a great sense of honouring the ancestors here, both in general and specific terms, Mike Waterson and Banjo Bill Cornett are the subjects of the two Simpson originals,

Central to the whole project is the new Simpson composition based upon the words of Banjo Bill Cornett of Hindman, Kentucky, from a 1958 home recording.

Cornett makes a heartfelt exposition of the beauty and purpose of traditional music-making: "This is Banjo Bill Cornett, I'm at home today, thirteenth day of February 1958. Here by myself, nobody but me around and that's when I usually play the banjo and sing and whatever. My children grew up, and they fell for this rock'n'roll music – honky tonk music whatever you might call it. I don't like that and I catch them all gone, my wife gone and then I carry on to suit my own self and I'm a making this record to give somebody – I don't know who I'll give this recording to, I want to give it to someone who will keep it and if there's any people after I'm gone who'd like to hear my carrying on as far as my singing and banjo playing is concerned, I'd like them to keep it."