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With 26 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards nominations in 12 years (more than anyone else), Martin Simpson is widely acknowledged as one of the best acoustic and slide guitar players in the world! His professional career began in the ‘70s, and he’s never stopped, producing a string of acclaimed and creative releases that combine English traditions with American influences, and more.

On the eve of his 60th birthday, he’s been busy recording a new solo album (Vagrant Stanzas, out July), collaborating with Arieb Azhar and Topic are re-releasing a number of his albums digitally.

Your new album’s called Vagrant Stanzas...

I'm very excited about it. I've been recording for a very long time now and this is the first record since the very beginning where it's been just me. I'm playing and singing live and it's really an attempt to capture a performance, that amazing atmosphere you get live.

The whole inspiration came from Richard Hawley, who is my neighbour. We spend a lot of time sitting round the kitchen table playing songs with each other and at each other, and he suggested we go into the studio. So we went in with Colin Elliot, his bassist, and Shez Sheridan, his guitarist, and they sat around and watched me work and said 'you do it on your own.' So I spent five days in the studio in America with Peter Denenberg, and came out with 22 tracks.

What’s the make-up of the album? 

There's some of my songs on there, a lot of traditional songs, and they're all tied together with these little instrumental passages. There's also a couple of Dylan songs, [Leonard] Cohen, Chris Wood, just songs that I think are amazing.

When it comes to selecting a song to cover, what do you look for?

What attracts me to a song is just the emotional content - what makes a song a song is what it says. I write songs only when I can't find another song that says what I want to say.

You’ve always mixed American and English songs – do you see any tension between combining the two traditions?

I don't think there's anything like that, there's no tension ... they're all part of the same palette. American folk songs are influenced by English folk songs, and vice versa. As long as you are emotionally connected then for me, they sit comfortably next to each other.

A chunk of your back catalogue is also being re-released this year isn’t it?

Yes. Everything on Topic is being released in a digital format. All my Topic catalogue is going into the digital zone. They come with digitally available sleeve notes, and they're very beautiful.

How was your recently collaboration with Pakistani musician Arieb Azhar?

We played Alchemy at The Sage Gateshead and South Bank [London] and it was really really good fun and massively well received. It's all actually done now, so we'll just have to wait and see if the British Council want us to do any more.  It was recorded and filmed at The Sage so there will be material floating about at some point.

It was an opportunity to improvise in a way that I really enjoy. For instance, one of the tunes, the scale, the mode, the raag, was 1, 2, flat 3, 5 major 6 and the octave - it's fabulous to have to improvise ... a great discipline, but very wild. Areb's a great singer, and incredibly talented and intelligent man.

You’re a regular visitor to Towersey – what is it about the festival that makes you keep coming back?

It's a complete family affair. My wife, Kit, has been going since she was little, and having the kids along now, we can all hang out ... and there's other kids there as well. The music is always really really good and socially, it's good too. I've had some great performances there, doing my own stuff with a band, with the trio, and with Roy Bailey, who has been amazing! Obviously, he's my father-in-law, but it's astonishing what he can do, amazing, and he's very much part of the fabric of Towersey. Every time I see him there, he blows people away.

Will your Towersey appearance this year be with a band, or solo?

I'm pretty much concentrating on playing solo at the moment to reflect the solo record, so I'm just doing what I want to do, which is a very exciting place to be.

You turn 60 in May – are you intending to mark the occasion?

This [new] record has a lot to do with that. I originally intended for it to come out in May, but it got put back [to end of July] for various reasons. But I'm doing two gigs in May in Sheffield, which is all part of the build up to the record - to do two gigs at home - and they both sold out ages ago, in advance, so that's great.

What are your plans after that?

To have a lie down! [laughs] I have 105 gigs between April and mid-December - which is great, it really is wonderful! I have a lot of ideas for next year. I'm relearning a lot of recordings I've recorded in the past as some just gets left behind, you do it and then don't play it again, so I've been playing them a lot, and practising a lot.

See Martin in The Big Club at Towersey Festival on Saturday 24 August 2013.

www.martinsimpson.com

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