TheBookshopBand

The Bookshop Band write songs inspired by books, and have been playing them in bookshops, literary festivals and libraries all over the UK and into Europe. The band began as a collaboration with Mr Bs Emporium of Reading Delights, in Bath (Independent Bookshop of the Year 2008 / 2011) as part of a plan to help Mr B’s rejuvenate its traditional ‘author evenings’. The band would read the forthcoming author’s book in advance and write two songs based upon it, to be performed at the start of the evening. Their performances are inextricably linked to the books themselves, as the members of the band take it in turns to describe where the inspiration for each song came from. After the first season the band recorded and released their first album, Travels From Your Armchair. Despite only being available in the bookshop itself, word soon spread and they were picked up by the BBC’s Tom Robinson who played them on his national Introducing show on BBC 6Music. More recently the band had a 10 minute feature on Kirsty Lang’s culture show, BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, a feature on The Today Program, a commission by BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, and a feature on BBC News, in The Independent, and Guardian Books. They have been championed by the authors, publishers, and even have a track being used in a national campaign to support bookshops around the UK and Ireland. To date they have written almost 100 songs inspired by over 50 diverse books, from Andrew Miller’s “Pure” (2011 Costa Novel of the Year) to Ian Rankin’s latest crime fiction Rebus novel “Standing in another man’s grave”, from Rachel Joyce’s debut hit “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” to Ruth Ozeki’s “A Tale For The Time Being”, short listed for the Booker Prize 2013. The band is made up of three British musician / songwriters, Ben Please, Poppy Pitt and Beth Porter. They struck up a friendship whilst playing with their respective bands at UK music festivals in 2009, and decided to collaborate after Mr B’s asked for music at their author events in 2010. To date, the band have released 4 albums, which cover their first twelve months of songwriting, and are currently recording a further 6 albums, covering their subsequent two years songwriting. These are due for release in 2014.

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