I’m not entirely sure what it is about the best folk/roots music, but it seems to me to get it right you need experience. By experience, I don't just mean being able to play really well, as I consider that a given, it’s more about an appreciation for what has come before, and possibly the most important thing of all, is an experience of life in general. In the sleeve notes to ‘Poets’ Liz Simmons thanks her parents for the itinerant lifestyle of her early years travelling the length and breadth of America in a sky blue VW bus. From the wharfs of San Francisco to the pubs of Ketchum, Alaska before settling in New England Simmons’ early life was a whirlwind of travel and music; be it folk, rock n’ roll or the New Orleans influenced tunes her parents played nightly in the pub.