Gigspanner Big Band on “Turnstone”: Folk Album of the Year 2025 Nominee
Folk on Foot
Matthew Bannister
4.8 • 526 Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Turnstone is an inquisitive bird that, as it name suggests, likes to overturn stones and seaweed in its search for food. That’s how the members of the Gigspanner Big Band see their hunt for the finest traditional songs to re-arrange, burnish and present for our delight. In this conversation with Matthew Bannister, the band’s Peter Knight, Hannah Martin and John Spiers share the stores behind the songs on their Folk Album of the Year nominated work “Turnstone”- and revel in the musical chemistry which allows the band to improvise much of their free flowing music.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So this special edition of Folk on Foot devoted to the Folk Album of the Year award |
| 0:14.4 | is to showcase the extraordinary album Turnstone by the Gig Spanner Big Band. |
| 0:19.3 | And I'm delighted that 50% of the band have joined me now. |
| 0:23.5 | Peter Knight, Fiddler and Vocals, Hannah Martin, Fiddle, Banjo vocals, John Spires, Squeezebox and vocals. |
| 0:32.1 | And we should doff our caps to those members of the band who are not here. |
| 0:36.0 | Philip Henry on Dobro and Harmonica, |
| 0:38.8 | Roger Flack on guitar and Sasha Troshet on percussion. |
| 0:43.4 | But first of all, ladies and gentlemen, |
| 0:46.1 | congratulations on your nomination as a folk album of the year. |
| 0:50.7 | Who is going to explain to me what a turnstone is? |
| 0:54.2 | A turnstone is a bird that searches for its treasures and food by turning over stones. |
| 1:00.9 | And we thought that it was much like the process of finding the right traditional songs to include on an album. |
| 1:07.4 | You turn over a lot of stones before you find the right one just glimmering there in the |
| 1:11.0 | dirt, in the mud. How does that process work, John, for example? Do you go and research in libraries |
| 1:16.5 | and that kind of thing before you put the repertoire together? Yeah, it's a variety of different sources. |
| 1:23.2 | I think everyone who brings songs to the band will find them in some way or the other, but we |
| 1:28.2 | know when we're going to be making an album. It's time to start looking. There are some fantastic |
| 1:32.9 | online resources now, libraries with, have put a lot of the material from the folk collectors |
| 1:38.9 | over the years in a much more accessible way than they used to be. So you can do it from the |
| 1:43.6 | comfort of your own home |
| 1:44.8 | rather than going and seeking stuff out. |
| 1:47.0 | But also I think there's things that have ended up on the album, |
... |
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