HECTOR GANNET – NEWCASTLE UNITED LAUNCH OFFICIAL DSP PRESENCE WITH NORTH SHIELDS ARTIST’S REIMAGINING OF TYNESIDE FOLK ANTHEM “THE BLAYDON RACES”

HECTOR GANNET

NEWCASTLE UNITED LAUNCH OFFICIAL DSP PRESENCE WITH NORTH SHIELDS ARTIST’S REIMAGINING OF TYNESIDE FOLK ANTHEM “THE BLAYDON RACES”

WATCH HERE

+ SET TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM ‘THE GREAT SHAKEDOWN’

OUT 23RD OCTOBER, VIA GUGA RECORDS

2026 FESTIVAL SHOWS AND LIVE DATES

To further its already extensive global reach, while cementing its respect for the history and culture of “the Toon”, Newcastle United have entered into the world of music, partnering with Interval Records and emerging North Shields artist Hector Gannet to create a new “reimagining” of “The Blaydon Races”.

The track marks the club’s arrival on digital platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music, giving fans a new way to connect with them. It’s a striking first move, placing a reworking of Tyneside’s own folk anthem, and a North East artist, at the very centre of the club’s first step into digital music.

Hector Gannet frontman Aaron Duff was the first choice of Interval Records, the label behind the project, for Newcastle United’s reimagining of “The Blaydon Races.” The club wanted a local artist recognised for genuine North East integrity, with a voice that carries the region’s accent honestly and up front. Working alongside producer Alex Blamire, the pair built a completely new arrangement of The Blaydon Races, while keeping the melody and lyrics true to the original, as written by Geordie Ridley in 1862.

Aaron Duff; “The Blaydon Races belongs to the region, to every person that has sung it with passion and love for their home, their team, their family. It’s part of our identity; our past, present and future. We have a duty to celebrate our heritage, to preserve it, to pay it forward and ensure that those words are sung with pride for generations to come. It’s a song that we all have a connection to, it takes us to a time and a place, unique to our own lives. During recording I put everything into it, I was thinking about my son, my Mam and Dad and all the family and friends at home, and all those we’ve lost along the way too, I can almost hear their voices, like they’re with us when we sing this.”

Hector Gannet also recorded the pipe organ at Newcastle St Nicholas Cathedral, using the ancient instrument housed in the very building that would have stood there at the time Ridley wrote the original song, and which sits directly on the route the song itself describes. It’s a rare, direct thread linking 1862 to 2026, recorded in the same historic and beautiful cathedral racegoers would have passed en route to Blaydon Races.

Producer Alex Blamire said, “It’s been an honour to work on a song that has a long legacy and means so much to so many people, and it’s great that the whole project has been executed in the North East, from the personnel to the locations and studio. We slowed the track down, making a more accessible piece, and focused on keeping the spirit of Blaydon Races alive, approaching the production in a very traditional way, using acoustic instruments and the very church organ that would have been there in 1862. During recording here at Polestar studios, we were thinking of all the places, and people that will have sung this song.”

The track also features Hector Gannet drummer Jack Coe, celebrated Northumbrian piper Chris Ormston, who has previously worked with Peter Gabriel, and local folk singers Emma Robson and Sam Shields on backing vocals. It was recorded at Polestar Studios in Byker, from where St James’ Park, sometimes known as “the cathedral on the hill,” can be seen across the city skyline. The track was also mixed locally by North Shields-based, Grammy-winning producer Eduardo De La Paz.

A short ‘Match-day’ version of the track will be played at every home game at St. James’ Park, beginning with the home fixture against Aston Villa on Saturday 17 October, when Hector Gannet will sing his version to the fifty-thousand-strong crowd. Both the matchday version and the full six-verse-and-chorus version will be available on all digital service providers for streaming and download.

The release of “The Blaydon Races” comes just one week ahead of Hector Gannet’s new album, The Great Shakedown, out 23 October on Guga Records. The band will celebrate both the album and the “The Blaydon Races” release with a full live show at Glasshouse, Hall Two, on 27 November; very limited tickets remain via hectorgannet.com.

Hector Gannet have always known that place and music are inseparable. For songwriter and guitarist Aaron Duff, North Shields high on England’s north east coast, shaped by fishing, shipbuilding, and the sea, is not just a backdrop but a source. Everything flows from it: the imagery, the politics, the particular stoicism of people who absorb more than their share and keep moving anyway.

‘The Great Shakedown’, their third album, is where that source runs deepest. Featuring bold brass arrangements alongside choir and church bells recorded live at the 17th-century Christ Church in North Shields, the album is Hector Gannet’s most ambitious and most searching work. The brass is a constant throughout: driving the Dexys-style urgency of the title track, lounging through the jazz-tinged “Big White Telephone”, surging euphorically through singles “The Mother Tongue” and “Seven Signs”.

The singles capture something essential about the album, euphoric on the surface, quietly devastating underneath. Beneath propulsive brass, lies an examination of stoicism as both armour and wound, of shared language used to avoid saying the very things that need to be said. It’s a quality that runs through the whole record, which looks at human history and art, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the actions of those in power and the communities who live with the consequences.

‘The Great Shakedown’ is a journey, and like all journeys it arrives somewhere. That somewhere is “No Money No Time”, a reprise and amalgam of threads pulled from across the album, rebuilt into something communal and euphoric. A vital and powerful rallying cry for unity. Above all ‘The Great Shakedown’ sings about people, loss, the importance of good over bad, and of community over isolation.

The new single and title track, “The Great Shakedown”, reaches back through history, utilising Reformation defiance, Jacobite rebellion, old myth and pageantry to highlight the muted awareness of ordinary people, of those who abuse their status or power, whether in positions of authority or simply among us, preying on the weak and vulnerable, while those affected watch, or choose to look away. The Great Shakedown is narrated by one who is at once the agitator and accused, calling for a reckoning of the abusers, and an awakening of the abused.

Hector Gannet will perform The Great Shakedown in full at Gateshead’s Glasshouse Sage Two on 27 November 2026.

The Great Shakedown is released on Guga Records on 23 October 2026 and will be available as vinyl, CD and download.

HECTOR GANNET – 2026 LIVE DATES

Aug 29th – Krankenhaus Festival – The English Lake District

Oct 3rd – Twisterella Festival – Middlesbrough

Oct 28th – Musicport Festival – Whitby

Nov 27th – Sage Hall Two – Glasshouse Gateshead (album launch)

NEW ALBUM ‘THE GREAT SHAKEDOWN’ OUT 23RD OCTOBER STREAM NEW SINGLE “THE GREAT SHAKEDOWN” HERE

FOR MORE INFORMATION w/ https://hectorgannet.com/