Simon Emmerson/Booth left an indelible creative streak that runs though our popular culture. He was a musician and Grammy nominated producer.
In the early 80s with the band Weekend he helped to bring jazz and post-punk together forming the basis for its successor Working Week. The band laid the foundations of the British wave of jazz dance and acid jazz that dominated the 90s.
The Afro Celt Sound System came of age in the era of rave and electronic music blending Gaelic folk and West African music to a pulse more in-tune with dance music, releasing through Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records.
Perhaps his biggest concept was The Imagined Village using his take on the English folk songbook to represent present day multiculturalism, fusing elements of folk, bhangra, dub reggae and dance music.
Simon became the Music Director at ethical cosmetic company Lush forming a body of work encompassing soundtracks and leading to the formation ECC Records. His range of collaborators spanned the most influential of names: Billy Bragg, Tracy Thorn, Robert Wyatt, Martin and Eliza Carthy, Robert Plant, Benjamin Zephaniah and Baaba Maal to name but a few.
Join us for a special one-off concert, with very special guests
Billy Bragg, Marin Carthy, Eliza Carthy, The Copper Family, Gilles Peterson, Snowboy, DJ Chris Tofu and more to be announced.
Proceed will go to the Weldmar Hospice who looked after Simon at the end of his life.
