Latest Music Bar Promotes PierFest: PierFolk Festival ‘Martin Simpson plus Naomi Bedford, Paul Simmonds, Ramshackle Band’

8pm-10:30pm // Horatios Bar on Brighton Palace Pier // TICKETS 

MARTIN SIMPSON:
The remarkable intimate solo performances Martin gives go from strength to strength – every gig is a masterclass. He travels the length and breadth of the UK and beyond, giving rapt audiences passion, sorrow, love, beauty, tragedy and majesty through his playing.
“What’s it like being the best guitar player in the world…?” Martin’s modesty and grace prevented him from answering this BBC Radio 4 interviewer’s question recently, but the facts speak for themselves.
40 years after he recorded his first album, Golden Vanity, in 1976, Martin is known as a guitarist of formidable talent. Equally at home playing English traditional folk, American folk and blues and his own compositions, he is consistently named as one of the very finest fingerstyle guitar players in the world.
He is listed in Gibson Guitars’ Top 30 Acoustic Guitarists of all time, and Acoustic Guitar readers voted him number 12 guitarist in the world in 2005.
Universally acclaimed as one of the finest ever acoustic and slide guitar players, and a fine banjo-picker to boot, his solo shows bear witness to an artist at the very top of his game. Whether interpreting material from tradition or singing his own potent self-penned songs, Simpson is a remarkable storyteller: captivating and profoundly moving. His own songwriting produced the poignant ‘Never Any Good’, from Prodigal Son, 2007’s Folk Album of the Year.
Martin continues to collaborate with a dazzling array of people 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 are among the great musicians he has worked with.
In recent years, he has been a lynchpin in the award-winning Full English, The Elizabethan Sessions and, in 2015, recorded Murmurs, an exciting new album with Andy Cutting and Nancy Kerr. Martin’s most recent album was released in November last year to the usual critical acclaim. ‘Home Recordings’ was recorded at his home by his regular producer, now neighbor, Andy Bell, and finds Martin singing and playing, literally amongst his beloved guitar and banjo collection and out on his Peak District-facing porch.
He has had the most nominations of any performer in the 18 years of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, an astonishing 32 times, 13 of those as Musician of the Year, winning that particular accolade twice.
A virtuoso player without question, but above all Martin Simpson conveys his diverse treasure trove of material from the heart, performing with rare subtlety, intensity and honesty. A true master of his art.

NAOMI BEDFORD, PAUL SIMMONDS, RAMSHACKLE BAND:
The Ramshackle Band features acclaimed Roots artists Naomi Bedford and Paul Simmonds and presents an extended line up version of their unique hybrid of folk and country styles. Championed by such diverse figures as Iggy Pop, Radio 2 and The Guardian, their mix of ballads and uptempo foot stompers is an essential live experience.’
Naomi Bedford and Paul Simmonds are a duo, based in the folk and country roots genre.
They have made 4 acclaimed albums and been nominated for a Radio 2 Folk Award ( Best Original Song). They tour widely and have appeared at Cambridge Festival, Glastonbury, Celtic Connections and many others. Their last album (2019) ‘Singing It All Back Home’, an album of Appalachian Ballads, originating in England and Scotland, was featured as the Guardian Album of the Month. Playing songs from the same album they were also featured in session on the Mark Radcliffe BBC Radio 2 show.
Paul is also the chief songwriter with legendary folk rock band The Men They Couldn’t Hang; his songs have featured in films, TV, radio and in academic resources.
Naomi has co written and sung on ‘Funny Break’, a Top 20 hit with Orbital and has appeared on Later with Jools Holland