Always on
This project successfully funded on 31st October 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
A Troubadour Journey : Lindisfarne to Durham
Wylam, Northumberland, United Kingdom
Aim
Original songs born on St Oswald's Way & The Way of Light. Help me record and release something beautiful inspired by my musical pilgrimage.
The Idea & Vision for "A Troubadour Journey"
This Crowdfunder is the next chapter in my story of musical pilgrimage. With your help and support I aim to raise £7.5K to work with a talented team of creative people to record, produce and release songs inspired by my journey from Lindisfarne to Durham along St Oswald's Way and The Way of Light. As I walked with a guitar on my back and played gigs where I stopped, I collected stories, ideas and soundscapes that have birthed new music that I want to gather together into a unique and beautifully artistic physical album.
Working with experienced producer and wonderful guitarist Graeme Duffin, I'll record the songs and weave them subtly together with soundscapes from the trails adding additional performances from some fine musicians I'd like to work with. In parallel I'll work with gifted designer Tim Roberts to have the output made into a physical Album (containing a CD) that will open out into six eye-catching artistic panels with an additional 32 page booklet containing lyrics, notes, photographs and reflections on the journey.
The text will be set around captivating artwork from talented Northumberland based artist Rebecca Vincent. The Crowdfunder cover piece (and strong contender for album cover) as pictured above is her beautiful print "Echoes of the Past, Lindisfarne". You can find out more about Rebecca's work by visiting her website.
Why Am I Crowdfunding ?
With this, my first ever foray into the world of Crowdfunding, I want to be able to bring "A Troubadour Journey" to vibrant life through capturing the artistic vision of the new songs in the best possible environment, making something that has a high quality and integrity to it. So far with this project I've done everything in my own time and at my own cost with no funding support. After weeks of planning and setting aside most of June this year to make the journey, I received encouragement and generous hospitality from so many people, those helping on the sidelines and those along the route - many of them strangers who have now become friends. Honouring that spirit I'm pouring significant time across the rest of the summer and autumn to write and arrange the music and inviting you dear supporters and friends to partner with me and help bring the album to life. Recording/releasing new music is expensive for independent artists these days and the erosion of income from recorded music due to negligible revenues from streaming services means there are few artists who can afford to do it properly. I want to be able to pay the people I work with fairly and produce something worth having - a tactile album that will set the music in context - and something that reflects the time and effort put into making the work. To do that there are several costs to meet. The funds from this Crowdfunder campaign will cover :-
- Studio recording time and producer fees : Approx £2.5K
- Session musician fees : Approx £800
- Mastering costs : Approx £500
- Design costs & Artwork licensing : Approx £1.5K
- Album & CD production costs : Approx £1.6K
- Album launch publicity costs : Approx £600
If I'm fortunate enough to hit and exceed the target I've set then any excess funds will be put towards developing and publicising the tour that will follow the launch of the album (more about that below). I will also consider whether it might be possible to produce a vinyl version of the album - also something that will be a first for any of my music over the years.
Everything in Season
Back in 2019 I fell into conversation with the remarkable and generous human being that is David Pott - Pilgrimage Consultant for the Durham Diocese. The newly constituted Northern Saints Trails which David had a huge hand in setting up were beginning to garner interest and he wondered after a previous experience of us working together whether I might consider bringing my songwriting to bear upon them. Using music (and songwriting in particular) as a conduit for story, a different way of seeing, is very much my terrain. I proposed walking some of the routes and reflecting my experiences through new songs that would coalesce around the theme of journeying. The world had other plans and in 2020 - everything was shelved.
A Musical Pilgrimage
Finally I walked. I dreamed. I received and was inspired in equal measure. On the early morning of 9th June 2025 I placed my bare feet upon the sands that lie off the east coast of Lindisfarne and, carrying my wee parlour guitar (Little Faith) on my back, I began a journey of wonder, music, meeting and parting. I followed the Way of St Oswald, down the Northumberland Coast, inland along the meandering River Coquet and overland to Hadrian's Wall. I joined The Way of Light, crossed the River Tyne at Hexham and laid my footsteps upon the edges of the Northern Pennines all the way to Durham. I arrived into Evensong at its famous Cathedral on the Eve of Midsummer and gave thanks for 141 miles of story, connection, wonder, challenge and transformation. Pilgrimage does that to you.
The Inspiration
As I went I sang and shared with communities where I stopped - concerts that were part entertainment and part exploration as we all grappled with our own sense of travelling along, passing through. We are all pilgrims. I gathered moments in soundscape - the opening and closing of gates, the ascent and descent of stiles, the rushing of water and wind, the varied calls of wildlife and the sounds of boot upon grass, gravel, cinder and rock. I spoke thoughts and instances into my iPhone notes - they didn't always translate, but often they did. I used an old fashioned pen to write down what happened, and what didn't. I delved into old stories written millennia ago and I became part of new stories that ran concurrent with the rhythm of my walking. Through it all the shape of a new collection of songs born along, and connected to the trails, linked to each other with the soundscapes I captured, began to emerge. Below is a short video I recorded on Day 7 of the walk while resting my weary feet at Heavenfield on Hadrian's Wall. It's a cover of the Merle Travis song "I Am A Pilgrim" which I included in my concerts and the lyrics of which permeated deeply as I moved along - "I've got a mother, a sister and brother, who have gone this way before. I am determined I'm gonna see them, over on that other shore."
Writing and Creating
And so today, I am deep in the process of making and creating the new songs. There are lyrical foundations and soft breathed melodies gently drifting through my creative landscape waiting to be forged together. Some song outlines are already written and require revising and finessing. Others are simply seeds waiting to be watered into growth. As a result of the journey, and the generosity of strangers now friends, I have two writing retreats - one in the Cheviot Hills and one back on Holy Island - to focus on bringing the songs into being this next few months. In amongst my other work and music collaborations I will be drawing upon my experiences back in June to bring the new work into sharp focus.
Recording
My hope and aim is that once the writing is completed in late October, and with the help of the funds I raise, I'll be able to begin working through November and December with Graeme Duffin to record and produce the album up in Glasgow. Graeme has had an inspiring and creative hand on so many of my albums in the past and it will be amazing to work with him once again to see where we can take these new ideas. I also hope to have a strong cast of musicians to contribute to some of the tracks and I'll announce those as I go along.
Bringing It Together
In parallel with the music recording I'll be working with designer Tim Roberts to set the new material against the visual backdrop of artist Rebecca Vincent's beautifully crafted prints. I really want the album to be visually striking and appealing and after meeting Rebecca at her studio in Horsley in the Tyne Valley, we looked at several pieces of her work that capture something deeply imaginative and evocative of the region I walked through. Once everything is complete I hope to launch the album in late March of 2026 and tour the new material back along the trail where the songs were first dreamed of and came to be in May 2026. After that I'll be travelling more widely to share the work in a live concert setting.
Your Support
Through all of this, your partnership and support will be invaluable to help capture the creativity and bring it all to life. With this, my first Crowdfunding campaign, I'm a little apprehensive about how it will all go. However, a bit like stepping out on the tidal sands of Holy Island for those first few miles of the journey, it will be exciting to head out into the unknown, looking forward to welcoming songs I've yet to meet and listening intently for that still small voice that lies behind all creativity. It would be a pleasure to have your company along the way...
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made