Singer, songwriter and guitar virtuoso Martin Simpson released his latest studio album Rooted on August 30 2019. Produced by Andy Bell and recorded in Sheffield and Oxfordshire, Rooted will be available on CD, LP and digital with the deluxe 2CD and deluxe digital versions including a bonus disc of instrumentals, Seeded.
Summing up the themes of his new album, Martin says: “The music and songs embrace nature and travel, mental health, real life stories, loss, politics and history… and the threads that bind all this together can be followed back a long way, to 1965 when I got my first guitar and started to soak up material and ideas at a very rapid rate.”
Rooted features an array of stellar guest musicians, including Nancy Kerr (fiddle and viola), Andy Cutting (melodeon and diatonic accordion), Liz Hanks (cello), John Smith (electric guitar and vocals), Ben Nicholls (string bass and electric bass guitar), Julie Matthews (vocals), Alan Barnes (clarinet), Max Simpson (vocals), Amy Smith (vocals), Chris While (vocals) and Tom A Wright (drums and percussion). Richard Hawley and Dom Flemons contribute backing vocals and bones respectively to first single ‘Neo’ (out 21st June). As well as vocals, Martin himself plays banjola, 5-string banjo, 6-string fretless banjo, electric bass guitar and electric and resonator guitars!
Rooted track listing:
1. Trouble Brought Me Here
2. Kimbie
3. Born Human
4. Ken Small
5. Hills Of Shiloh
6. Henry Gray
7. Who’s Going To Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot?
8. Queen Jane
9. Joe Bowers
10. Fool Me Once
11. Kingfisher
12. Neo
13. More Than Enough
Seeded track listing (bonus disc with deluxe CD and deluxe digital albums):
1. Arbutus Turnaround
2. A Blues
3. Bonny Kate
4. Mama, It Ain’t Long
5. Queen Jane (instrumental)
6. Waenglapiau
7. Who’s Going To Show Your Pretty Little Foot? (instrumental)
Hand in hand with his long and storied solo career, Martin has been central to seminal collaborations like The Full English, The Elizabethan Sessions and Simpson Cutting Kerr. He has worked with a dazzling range of artists from across the musical spectrum: Jackson Browne, Martin Taylor, June Tabor, Richard Hawley, Bonnie Raitt, Danny Thompson, David Hidalgo, Danú, Richard Thompson and Dom Flemons, to mention a few. He is consistently named as one of the very finest acoustic, fingerstyle and slide guitar players in the world and is the most nominated musician in the history of the BBC Folk Awards, with a remarkable 31 nods. A true master of his art.
