With a name like Mumford & Sons you might be thinking law firm or publisher or perhaps an accounting or construction firm but no, Mumford & Sons is a group of literate twentysomethings out of London who play folk music and love books.
In preparation for their upcoming tour the band played two gigs at used bookshops on Charing Cross Road! They shows, at Quinto and Any Amount of Books, are part of a campaign to save the endangered independent bookshop.
Nearly half the songs on their upcoming album Sigh No More, are inspired by books. One song “Timshel”, has its roots in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Even the album’s title comes from the world of books. It is taken from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. On using a reference to the Bard for the album title Mumford says “You can rip off Shakespeare all you like; no lawyer’s going to call you up on that one.”
Rick Pearson, in his piece, The bookshop band Mumford & Sons, at the London Evening Standard, sums up the literary passion of the band perfectly, “It’s a passion borne out in Mumford & Sons’ music, which, like the best bookshops, is intimate, old-fashioned and filled with literary references.”