Martin Carthy, English folk pioneer and national treasure, celebrates his 70th birthday at the Royal Festival Hall next weekend, and here’s a two disc career overview.
The hypnotic, chunky, acoustic guitar style arrives fully-formed on the earliest tracks, from ’65 and ’66, pulsating round the purloined ur-folk licks on which Paul Simon and Bob Dylan built their breakthroughs.
Psychically sympathetic modal duets with the fiddler Dave Swarbrick remain timelessly intense.
By a 2004 reading of Famous Flower Of Serving Men, ten minutes of head-drone render contemporary acid folk obsolete, and Carthy’s once reedy vocal has a Methuselaic authority, his playing flowing like blood.
Birmingham Sunday Mercury
Birmingham Sunday Mercury
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Richard Herring, Comedian
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Z-factor, Twitter.
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BBC iPlayer edition of discussion of Stewart Lee on A Good Read
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General Lurko 36, Guardian.co.uk
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Yukio Mishima, dontstartmeoff.com
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Tweeter Kyriakou, Twitter
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Maninabananasuit, Guardian.co.uk
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Alex Quarmby, Edfringe.com
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Anon, BBC Complaints Log
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James Dellingpole, Daily Telegraph
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Lenny Darksphere, Twitter
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Al Murray, Comedian
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Dahoum, Guardian.co.uk
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Lee Mack, Mack The Life, 2012
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Visualiser1, Twitter
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Robert Gavin, Twitter
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John Robins, Comedian