Prodigal Son
Artist: Martin Simpson
Label: Topic / Compass
15 tracks /  65 mins
 
The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards usually burst with all kinds of roots talent, so to win one says something about an artist's ability. To win Musician of the Year  twice in three years screams the message loudly. Simpson won his awards in 2002 and 2004, too recently for his ability to shrivel, and this release confirms that he has plenty to offer listeners on both sides of the Atlantic.
 
With guest vocals from the likes of Jackson Browne and Kate Rusby, and the help of players like Danny Thompson (bass) and Andy Cutting (accordion)  Prodigal Son also displays his standing among his fellow musicians.
 
Much of the first half of the disc is made up of traditional English songs, interspersed with Simpson's own work, often instrumental. “She Slips Away” is a simple, beautiful and haunting guitar piece, written after spending an afternoon with his mother the day before she died. Quiet and reflective, it ends almost unexpectedly, giving way to a poignant silence.
 
His instrumentals could all be longer, including the more lively pieces. The delightful “Pretty Crowing Chicken” features banjo, an instrument that he has been converted to, and which adds an extra dimension to his range. 
 
His own compositions also include songs, most notably “Never Any Good” - written about his father, shell-shocked in the war and taciturn after it. Beautifully composed, it shows the hand of someone who has absorbed the heart of folk from across the centuries and knows how to knead his words.
 
Those familiar with Fairport Convention's “Matty Groves” will instantly recognize the same work, re-built here by Simpson and entitled “Little Musgrave”. Simpson is such a student of song that such tabloid links get bypassed in his liner notes in favour of more detailed information. Writing about these “big ballads” he reveals that there could be many versions circulating and, “you might have to write or re-build and collate”. His versions are certainly finely-tuned.
 
The other big ballad (nine minutes) here is “Andrew Lammie”. Based on a true story from the 1600s, it shows that honour killings are not just a recent cultural import, but that pride and prejudice are found anywhere and any time in the human soul.
 
The album title probably relates more to the pieces about his parents than to anything in the way of spiritual roots, but in the nineties Simpson recorded an album of hymns, showing how the music evolved when transported to America, and he ends this disc with “When a Knight Won his Spurs”. 
 
Simpson himself moved to the States in 1987 (after working with June Tabor for ten years). The second half of this project features more banjo and includes some very American pieces, which range from Leadbelly's almost comically amoral “Duncan and Brady” to an excellent cover of Randy Newman's shrewdly observed “Louisiana 1927”. True to his reporting of the songs, his accent does a remarkable change from Yorkshire to Stateside when he covers the American material, but that is not a bad thing in my book.
 
With its range of styles and stories, superb pacing, impeccable musicianship and hour's worth of material, it takes many listens to truly unpack all the excellent content on this disc.
 
Derek Walker