You can take the boy out of South London, but you can't take South London out of the boy. The songs on The Hobo Manifesto album were inspired by my growing up in London and the music that influenced me as a singer-songwriter.

The opening line to the first track, 'Graduation Day', refers to 1984, the year of the miners' strike and the pits closing down. It was the birth of a new generation having to make new career choices.

1984 was a great year in my musical career. I was bass guitarist with the Balham Alligators, a band that played Cajun, rock and country music with a punk like attitude. The gigs never ended. That year we played the Tondor Folk & Blues Festival in Denmark and backed folk legend Odetta and many other top folk music performers in a tribute concert to the music of Woody Guthrie. For me as bass player it felt like being a quarterback in the Super Bowl. If I could nail the date that I became hooked on the music of Woody Guthrie that would be it. This album is my dedication to his life and music.

The journey to the making of this album started where I grew up, on the banks of the river Graveney in the Streatham Vale Estate in South London. This is an area romantically described by Dave Kelly of The Blues Band as the South Thames delta and has been home to many a folk and blues musician, including rock 'n' roll legend Wee Willie Harris.

From gazing at f-hole cello-backed guitars in Ally's Owl Shop (next to Streatham bus garage) and albums of Blind Lemon Jefferson (the first blues album I ever bought from the swing shop up the road) my love of folk music has developed into a burning passion.

My first solo performance was at the Thurlow Arms folk club in South London when the band I was booked to play with failed to show up. That first set included sea shanties such as 'Bonnie Ship The Diamond' and my favourite Joan Baez song, 'Lily Of The West'.

Nine of the songs on this new album were written over the last six months, sitting in my tower block council flat gazing across the Thames estuary. The only song that wasn't is 'The Ballad Of Derek Bentley', the story of a teenager, also from the South Thames delta, who was executed at Wandsworth prison on 28 January 1953 for a crime committed by his partner, Chris Craig.

The album was recorded live at Mark Hewins' studio in Margate, Kent. I turned up with my Faith guitar and a pocket full of harmonicas. All ten songs were recorded on first or second takes. "The Hobo Manifesto", I give it to you.

    Arthur Kitchener 2011

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