Chart news is music to Seth's ears

HOMEGROWN folk hero Seth Lakeman has seen his new album hit the top ten – just two days after its launch.

Seth, who launched Poor Man's Heaven at Plymouth HMV on Monday, confessed to being 'absolutely speechless' at the number six placing in the midweek official UK album chart, which gives a strong indication of where the album will end up at close of play in the official weekend chart.

“We were hoping for top twenty,” he said, en route to his album signing at HMV Bristol on yesterday, “but didn't expect top ten.

“I'm completely bowled over! It means we're up there with the Ting Tings and Duffy; this is a folk record for goodness' sake!

“This placing means that the album should be sure to stay in the top ten, and with all the promo may even stand a chance of going higher.”

The release of the album was cleverly timed to coincide with Seth's appearance on the acoustic stage at Glastonbury before an audience of around 10,000 punters.

This, together with a live appearance from the BBC tent plus plenty of networking and promo at the festival, appears to be helping shift his fourth and grittiest collection in quantity.

But all the hype would be nothing if the music wasn't up to scratch and Seth and his band stormed the acoustic tent, with crowd volume on a scale seldom heard before.

The success of Poor Man's Heaven, which was co-produced by Seth's brother Sean and recorded at Cornish studios in Bude and St Merryn, will be a real vindication for Seth, who has had to battle to get the album released on his own terms.

He refused to comply with his label Relentless's wishes to come up with a more 'pop'- orientated song to put out as a single, which resulted in the delayed release of the album.

He said: “This has been a really big step for me; there's no single on there, but it shows that people are getting behind real music. The label is really, really happy with the way things are going and are getting fully behind it.”

Radio 2 have chosen to play Crimson Dawn, arguably the most accessible/ crossover track on the album, though the opening, tribal-drum-driven rocky song The Hurlers is also a popular choice for radio presenters.

A top ten placing for the album is all the more remarkable with the lack of an obvious heralding single: but then for a folk album to chart this high is a real rarity. In the early Seventies the likes of Fairport Convention, Lindisfarne and Steeleye Span made it into the top ten and The Waterboys and the Levellers did it in the Nineties. Seth's labelmate KT Tunstall has done it more recently, but to reach the upper echelons with such a full-on, uncompromising, rootsy offering as Seth's latest, in this day and age, is an exceptional achievement.

Seth says: “We've worked really hard and it looks like all the good work we've put in is paying off.”