Linda's Page

LIVE WORK

 Linda still continues to work live herself; actively seeking work to fund the project

Solo, or with other musicians, she will bring her own brand of humour and love of music to each and every performance.

She is also happy to play house concerts.

ENQUIRIES TO

lindaontour@gmail.com

Photograph by Elsa Hoffmann

Follow the links to see Linda working with Jonathan Barrett and Andy Tillison at The Acoustic Festival of Britain 2010.

VIDEO LINKS

Video of solo performances will be added as soon as they are available.

Photograph by John Haxby

You will also find performances on the Magna Carta web site

For more details email info@mamadont.co.uk

PERSONAL BLOG

You might also like to read Linda's Blog - It's chatty, personal and informal
Click Here

Biography

Photograph by John Haxby

Linda Simpson has been devoted to music for as long as she can remember, only briefly wanting to be a vet, around the age of 6.

Whenever she was asked
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
The answer came back without any hesitation, “A singer”

Funnily enough she still gets asked the same question – and the answer is still the same. Music has been her love and her life for so long now that there is no turning back.

Back then she would take any job that allowed her to pursue her musical dream but the two main sources of income were the tax office, where flexible hours were more than helpful, and managing a betting office for a firm who very kindly allowed her to come and go as she needed.

She taught herself to play guitar and for a while played a Fender Strat’ in a rock band.

She loved every minute spent on music but her personal life was not a cake walk “It’s so hard for a non-musician to understand why a rehearsal is more important than the night out you planned weeks ago, and relationships with other musicians are always a battle of egos in some shape or form. It's not surprising that I gave up on the idea of any kind of family life long ago”

As Linda was struggling to find her feet and start writing songs, Chris Simpson was following a totally different path. Chris started Magna Carta in 1969 (www.magnac.com); he penned the albums ‘Seasons’ and ‘Lord of the Ages’ two folk-rock classics of their time, and went on to record 12 albums with Phonogram. In 1983 he was promoting a new single ‘Sting of the Gin’ but by then the folk boom was over and acoustic/folk music had been all but abandoned by the major record companies.  

Their meeting was engineered by a mutual friend, Nigel Schofield, who was a DJ, and head of music, at Pennine Radio. Chris and Linda hit it off and within a few weeks they were working together. They went out to the Middle East to work in The Intercontinental Hotel in Al Ain, From there they moved to Abu Dhabi where they ran a music club for the next couple of years. They did British Council tours, musically representing Britain, playing for audiences in the most unusual places, and interacting with musicians from different countries and cultures.

Chris had already done several BC tours with Magna Carta as a band, but working as a duo with Linda they were easily movable and played in such places as Syria, Algeria, Costa Rica, Jordan, Tunisia, Iraq, The Czech Republic, Venezuela  and more. It was a fascinating and rewarding time.

With the series ‘Unplugged’, acoustic music started to rise again in popularity and Magna Carta was once again in demand in the popular sense. They were making albums and things were looking good. A young, Dutch, fiddle/mandolin player called Matt Barnhoorn joined the band, by which time Magna Carta’s popularity in Holland meant that they usually did two tours there each year but, with Matt on board, they also worked throughout Europe, South Africa and Canada.

Chris and Linda got married in 1990 but by 2006, after 23 years of working together, the cracks were starting to show. Linda’s father was terminally ill, he died in November 2007 and Chris, who had taken up with someone new, left the marital home in the December, but they agreed that they would work together until 2009. The idea was to do a final concert in The Carré in Amsterdam, the Dutch equivalent of The Royal Albert Hall, celebrating 40 years of Magna Carta; thus going out with a bang, rather than a whimper.

The concert took place in May 2009, the marriage was dissolved, the house was sold and Linda found herself with a blank canvas and a need to re-invent herself.

Now and then she had tried to convince Chris that perhaps they should ‘manage’ a young band and give them the benefit of Magna Carta’s experience. Chris wasn’t keen on the idea, saying that he had had enough of the music business, so the whole thing was shelved. Linda now realised that she could perhaps pick up on the idea again.

As Linda doesn’t drive, she chose an unusual solution to getting around and bought a narrow boat. She set about buying the equipment that she thought she would need and started putting a plan together. Without Chris to take care of the hustle she realised that management was not an option … so she decided to use her experience, and organisational skills, to promote acoustic music and to try to get talented musicians off the internet and onto stages.

The impact of losing everything slowed things down quite a bit. Concentration was a big problem and the fact that you only get ‘one shot’ when going for a project like this made her wary of setting out too soon.

Linda tells us;-

“I had so much support through the difficult times; I owe it to all those wonderful friends to make something of the confidence and love that they put back into my life”

Having designed the interior of her own boat especially for the project, she took possession of it in July 2009. Then she realised that she had no idea how to get the boat from Northwich, where it was built, to Barnoldswick where she had booked winter moorings.

“It’s almost uncanny the way things come together sometimes. I had had a few hours instruction on the boat with different friends, but I was certainly not experienced enough to get from Northwich to Barnoldswick."

The time factor was starting to get critical when Ivan, a friend from our time in the Middle East, gave me the number of a friend of his, along with the recommendation … ‘What Tony doesn’t know about boats isn’t worth knowing’

"Of course I ‘phoned Tony and he agreed to help me. I can’t tell you how pleased I was to see him when he appeared at the boat. He had a quiet air of confidence and, although he is quite a diminutive figure at 5’ 1”, he had a huge smile and I silently thanked Ivan, and the universe, for putting us in touch.

The trip was hard work and fun. There were a few problems with the boat but Tony, being a marine engineer, solved most of them as they arose and even showed me how to do an oil change. I couldn’t believe that I could be so lucky!

We laughed a lot and so I asked him if he fancied a trip to London the following summer and he said yes.

The other member of the crew is Linda’s 7 year old Labrador, Harvey Sprout, or is it ‘Captain Harvey Sprout’? Harvey was a present to Linda from ‘The Friends of Magna Carta’ based in Holland, … and we mustn’t forget ‘Bilge Rat’ .. a stuffed rat that sits around the place for luck.  In times of trouble the rats always abandon ship first – so if the rat’s around – all is well… at least that’s the theory.

The winter of 2009 was the worse for 50 years and a bit of a baptism of fire, or rather ice, and I think many people thought I would give up on the whole idea but I loved it. The boats looked so lovely covered in snow and it was so cosy with he stove burning away 24/7. Harvey loves trashing snowmen so he loved it too.The ice was thick around the boat and it was even possible to walk on it, what an amazing time.

It was by then 7 months since the last concert and I was starting to wonder how I would get anything started. Someone recommended that I should get in touch with The Rainhall Drinks Company as they had a small bar which would be great for an acoustic club. I went along to meet Penny and Alan and they agreed to let me arrange an acoustic night. It worked really well, a good time was had by all and I had enjoyed the whole experience.

It took quite a lot of effort and I realised that with just a little more work I could probably do the whole thing on a bigger scale.

Winter turned to Spring and Tony came and helped me to black the boat in Skipton. After that we set off for New Mills where Tony has his own boat. The idea was to have Tony's boat sandblasted and then set off for our London trip. First the weather was against us, and then Tony's father died. It wasn't unexpected but I knew from experience that it was still a shock so everything had to go on hold until the time was right.

I used the time to put an album together, form my own record company, learn how to use Cubase (ish) and sort out a web site. I also did a concert at the acoustic Festival of Great Britain to get some footage to put on You tube. (video links above)

We did eventually get away but by then there was no time to take things at a leisurely pace so we set off like a bat out of hell and the pace only relaxed when we stopped for two weeks at Cropredy for the festival. After that it picked up again and we made our way onto The Thames via the Grand Union canal - coming back up the Oxford to make out way back.

It was an amazing time but part way around I went to a lovely acoustic club in Banbury where I found that, as I introduced myself, I was telling everyone who I used to be. Suddenly I had absolutely no idea who I was. It was such an awful feeling that I simply dropped everything and decided to just enjoy the rest of the trip and give myself more time to work that one out.

 Nine weeks after starting out we were back in New Mills. It was impossible to go back up the Leeds Liverpool due to the water shortage ... parts of it were totally closed and so the boat stayed put.

I started to check out the local music venues and play a little, I'm writing songs again, I've been in touch with people who I think might help with the project and I'm getting organised again. Fotofire have become sponsors and made this great web site for me - if you're in the UK and thinking of a web site you should certainly contact them.

The project is called ‘Mama Don’t’ Linda explains;

“JJ Cale’s version of this song has got to be one of my favourite tracks of all time, it starts off with;-

‘Mama don’t allow no guitar pickin’ ‘round here’ but goes on to say;-

‘I don’t care what Mama don’t allow, gonna play my guitar anyhow…..’

 That just appealed to me, and so a great friend, Walter Goyen, a fantastic graphic artist (www.liqua.nl) designed a fun 60s style logo for me.

 I decided that MAMA would stand for ‘Mixed Age, Mostly Acoustic’ and now I have a head full of ideas …. and a lot of work to do.

Latest News

16/Nov/2010
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