“Old songs and new words” as Gigspanner play Hastings

Spokeswoman Jane Brace said: “Following a hugely successful July debut tour one of folk music‘s most inventive and exciting line-ups is reuniting with best-selling author Raynor Winn for an autumn tour which mines traditional songs and tunes from the West Country and unveils new words inspired by the region.

“Gigspanner Big Band is a sensational sextet led by Peter Knight whose singular and emotive fiddle-playing has enriched the British music scene for more than four decades, for many years with Steeleye Span and now with his own duo, trio and big band.

“In the Big Band he is joined by stand-out acoustic and electric guitarist Roger Flack, percussionist Sacha Trochet, award-winning duo Phillip Henry & Hannah Martin (Edgelarks) and John Spiers, founder member of Bellowhead, described as one of the best melodeon players of his generation.

“Between October 19-31, the band will take to the road with Saltlines, the enthralling new show described as a portrait of the South West Coast Path in old songs and new words. Winn, an ambassador for the Path, has penned brand-new vibrant and emotive words bursting with visual imagery to stir into the hypnotic, haunting and wholly immersive experience.

“It’s a flowing, spellbinding performance that conjures up a coastal reverie – a dreamscape where you can almost smell the salt air and hear the call of the oystercatchers. The July tour saw standing ovations for every show – all eight of which were in the south-west.

“Winn, now based in Cornwall, became a celebrated first-time author with The Salt Path, her account of how she and husband Moth, homeless and bankrupt and with Moth recently diagnosed with an incurable illness, set off to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path – an unlikely decision that, against all the odds, led them back to happiness. Read by more than half a million people, the book became a Sunday Times best-seller in 2018, won the Royal Society of Literature’s inaugural Christopher Bland Prize.”