Home, home on the range

And so here we are high up in the Mendip Hills in the pitch January dark trying to look for an unlit village hall that’s set back from the road. So you look for the greatest concentration of lost souls. Yes, it’s folk night. But what a night. In Priddy Village Hall we have (after an impressive instrumental support slot from Tristan from Guildford) Martin Simpson, much acclaimed folk singer/ guitarist, mentioned in the same breath as Ry Cooder by some for his roots work (and we’re not talking teeth or gardening). A strange venue and the swansong of the Old Down Acoustic Club who chose this evening to bow out. Well what a show to go with. And for an aside on them, they have run a fairly amazing series of shows over the years – a Seth Lakeman performance in a pub in Litton stands out as a highlight – and I’m sure Cathy and John deserve a rest but hopefully they will be back to do the things they do.
Despite the slight weirdness of the venue – you half-expected the hall to be surrounded by God-knows-what and that we would have to escape back to civilisation guns blazing – the acoustics were great and Martin Simpson, armed only with a pair of acoustic guitars (am I overdoing this cowboy outlaw angle?) played and played. And also explained what he was up to and where the songs came from in between. Much of the material was from his last – and excellent – album but also thrown in was a Little Feat song that he had learned from a studio demo tape his friend (in California) had found and shipped over – but with an extra verse that didn’t make it to that album. Seasoned readers will know that anyone who knows and likes Lowell George is all right by me but who would think you can discover new stuff on one of California’s finest ever bands from the depths of the Mendip Hills. Cosmic or what?Anyway, it was all taken in the stride of the audience, don’t want to give too much away after all, reserve and all but, underneath it all, we all knew that we had been watching and listening to a fairly stratospheric talent (later confirmed by various awards from Radio 2) matched to deep humanity. What a wonderful man and cracking stuff. Staggering off back into the cold and dark with plenty to think about. Not least, two gigs into the year and they’re going great.