In part, the album reflects Simon’s extraordinary journey as a musician. With his roots in the political, post-punk era, Simon first created the acoustic trio Weekend, with singer Alison Stratton, and then Working Week, whose blend of jazz, soul and Latin helped define an Eighties whose intelligence was at odds with the decade’s Duran-style pop. As a mover and shaker in London’s clubland he co-produced two albums of ‘Acid Jazz’ alongside Gilles Peterson before producing world musicians like Baaba Maal and Manu Dibango. After this he founded the Afro Celt Sound System, a daring fusion of musical cultures and an ensemble that remains a festival favourite to this day. Simon has three Grammy nominations to his credit. FolkEast is also keen to nurture young talent, and this year sees a Sunday performance by the National Youth Folk Ensemble and the introduction of a Youth Moot programme, curated by young Suffolk musician Finn Collinson who will also perform with his band on Sunday afternoon. Engineer [Main Recording Engineers] – Mass, Oliver Knight, Paul Grady, Richard Evans (3), Simon Richmond The Youth Moot, open to 11-17-year-olds, will include workshops and more in a new space at FolkEast. He was still receiving a student grant when he co-founded the jazz-influenced Weekend, so decided to change his professional name. As Simon Booth he played guitar on Weekend’s La Varieté (1982), on which Alison Statton’s bossa-influenced vocals were matched against jazz players including Annie Whitehead on trombone and Larry Stabbins on saxophone. Live at Ronnie Scott’s (1983) featured the jazz pianist Keith Tippett.

Apart from work with his own bands, Simon’s many production credits included albums for Manu Dibango from Cameroon (Polysonic 1990), Tarika from Madagascar (Son Egal, 1997) and Baaba Maal – he was nominated for a Grammy for Maal’s Firin’ in Fouta (1995). His UK production work included albums for Show of Hands (Witness, 2006) and Spiro (Lightbox, 2009). With few performances since 2012, a superb stroke of serendipity sees them returning to FolkEast for the festival’s milestone 10 th year – a real coup, with most of the original line-up intact.One of just two UK festival appearances this summer, the band will headline the opening night on Friday, August 19, in the grounds of glorious Glemham Hall. And the extraordinary lineup on the main Sunset stage will be nothing less than folk royalty. Also previously announced for England’s most easterly festival are fast-rising singer songwriter Katherine Priddy, Spiers and Boden, the effervescent Sam Kelly & The Lost Boysand Anglo-French five-piece Topette!! whose latest album we reviewed here.

There are some beautiful field recordings from The Sound Approach, the first featuring pro-wildlife campaigner/podcaster Charlie Moores talking about the loss of wild meadows. In the accompanying soundscape, you can hear endangered bird species you now rarely hear, such as the turtle dove, quails and corncrakes. Simon says, “these were the types of birds I would have heard as a kid when I went out camping but have now disappeared”. Charlie makes several appearances in the mix, and there are some incredible field recordings by Magnus Robb (The Sound Approach, Northern Flyway). Across their nine albums, Emmerson sugared the ensemble’s core line-up with the likes of Iarla Ó Lionáird, Martin Hayes, Davey Spillane, Moussa Sissokho, Johnny Kalsi and Ayub Ogada. The result situated Irish traditional music within a wider, international context, one that deliriously embraced the old and the new. Their 2017 album, The Source, earned them recognition as Best Group in that year’s Songlines Music Awards. It’s with a heavy heart that we announce on Monday, 13th March, the peaceful passing of our dear Simon Emmerson, after a prolonged illness.

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They have all been busy with other projects, of course – though Simon says that Eliza has constantly been pestering him to organise a re-union. As a tribute to Simon, you can listen to those mixes below in which his passion for nature and music is clear, he was one of a kind.

SE “It was apparent that if the band was to move forward we had to write a new body of songs based on our skills as lyricist and composers embracing contemporary issues as well as reflecting an English musical identity that isn’t specifically rooted in the folk tradition.”

Notes

The resurgence of folk in the new century, a hundred years after Cecil Sharp became riveted by the sight of Morris dancers, remains a work in progress. Already, though, new times are finding fresh resonance within folk’s age-old contours. The music’s darker strains, its murder ballads and pirate yarns, have been pulled to the fore – witness the recent Rogue’s Gallery project – while in an age of corporate governance, the fact that folk is not ‘owned’ by anybody is cheering.