The Salts

This five-piece band perform shanties and sea songs, but not in quite the way we're used to hearing. Five seasoned musicians who produce a unique sound, described by Mike Harding as rather like a Bellowhead reduction more subtle, but just like a jus is reduced, they bring forward the essence of the key ingredients. The band members' backgrounds vary from classical music training, the BBC's Young Folk competition, blues, and other music genres, individually they have worked with a variety of well-known musicians such as 60s' legend Arthur Brown, The Pasadenas, Ben E King and Keith Hancock & Clive Gregson. When one talks about multi-instrumental, this lot take some beating, with mandolin, whistle, banjo, guitar, double bass and usually drums, but that's with the electric stage band, not in the confines of folk club venues. What's more, the playing is truly accomplished, with superbly arranged vocal harmonies. The Salts' second album, Brave, is receiving rave revues across the board, and their live performances are impassioned and rousing with swashbuckling energy and fire-cracked enthusiasm, and guaranteed to get you singing along!