He prowled onto the stage. A diminutive but muscular troubadour dressed in black jeans, white t-shirt and a smart, black tuxedo with satin piping. The gold hoops in his ear-lobes, his tanned face, and his Gary Rhodes hair-cut, made him look part Matador and part Marine.
The audience was a bit different to the ones that I am used to. They were attentive and studious, with some taking notes, and one making charcoal drawings of Le Simpson. They were guitar buffs and aficionados of the Tradition. At half-time they discussed tunings and stuff like that. This old duffer was out of his depth.
Of course, your correspondent made a complete exhibition of himself. The first piece was a delightful instrumental and at the conclusion I began to show my appreciation in the customary manner. How was I to know that Simpson was merely tuning up?
Can anyone make a guitar speak in the way that Martin Simpson does? His playing is, quite simply, astonishing and breath-taking. It is rich, bluesy, heart-rending and heart-quickening. But the distinctive thing about Simpson is that he possesses a voice to match his guitar. It’s a voice that does more than justice to the traditional songs and the compositions of people like Tawney, Thompson, and Dylan. His self-penned songs, too, bore the same hallmarks of quality and timelessness.
We had two sets. The first was given over to tales of Crime and Punishment and Migration/movement. Tales of piracy, highwaymen, acts of violence, voyages, executions, separation from lovers and birth-places, bent coppers, murder, robbery and such stories as would make you hang on every word. The second set was devoted to Love, in all it’s varieties, and all it’s attendant joys, miseries, disappointments and longings. The encore saw Mr. Simpson seated with a banjo on his knee, playing the mesmerising ‘House Carpenter.’
The people who had sat quietly throughout the recital suddenly went bonkers. A roaring trade was done at the CD stall and they snaffled the Simpson posters from the walls and carried them off as mementos. If he comes within 100 miles of the Greater Manchester conurbation, I will make it my business to see him again. And again. And again. He could be addictive.
Sir Robert Peel
Roving Reporter
