The Folk Roots List

~Knightley and Beer revisit their brilliant back catalogue for new album and first duo tour in 4 years~

Devon’s Steve Knightley and Phil Beer will be back on the road as a duo next month – the first “two hander” performances since 2007 – with several shows already sold out.

Today, singer songwriter Knightley and multi instrumental whizz Beer, of the phenomenally successful Show of Hands, are usually accompanied by striking double bass player/vocalist Miranda Sykes. But between October 12-30 the 2010 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards double winners will take to the road for their first duo tour in four years, showcasing a brand new double album, Backlog 2.

The Backlog tour opens at Cornwall’s Keay Theatre in their native West Country on Wednesday, October 12 and revisits the vast and brilliant back catalogue of the Exeter-based duo who next year celebrate their formidable 20 year partnership with a fourth date at the Royal Albert Hall (Easter Saturday 2012).

On the tour, which will see performances from Brighton to Burnley, Knightley and Beer will perform two sets each night of the best of their back catalogue songs, most from the prolific pen of Knightley.

The accompanying Backlog 2 album, due for release in October, will comprise 18 top songs chosen by members of the band’s fans site Longdogs from the first 10 years of the Knightley/Beer partnership (1992-2002), during which time the pair recorded some eight classic CDs from Live 92 (recorded at The Bull Hotel, Bridport) to Beat About the Bush (1994), Q Magazine’s Folk Album of the Year Lie of the Land (1995); Dark Fields (1997) , and the much-acclaimed studio album Cold Frontier (2001) with numbers including Cold Heart of England.

Recorded in a converted Suffolk barn, with the help of engineer and producer Mark Tucker, these are fresh versions of songs that rarely reach the current concert set lists. Says Steve: “Backlog 2 is effectively 18 songs captured simply by the two of us with no extras, effects or overdubs.”

Backlog 2 follows on from an original Backlog album, released in 1995, with tracks chosen from recordings in the 1987-1991 time frame.