Martin Carthy in the Peak District

Clarinetist, guitarist and former Lounge Lizard Doug Wieselman turned me onto British folk legend Martin Carthy some years ago. A mesmerizing guitarist and singer — one listen and you’re hooked. Over the weekend I went to hear Carthy, now 83, about an hour south of us, near Sheffield in the tiny town of Dungworth, inside the boundary of England’s fantastically beautiful Peak District.

Carthy came up at a time around the British Invasion and was highly influential, his impact felt by Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Richard Thompson and more. (His take on the traditional “Scarborough Fair” was the basis for Simon & Garfunkel’s version, though he wasn’t credited.) Carthy is not unlike the late Scottish fingerstyle master and singer-songwriter Bert Jansch, who influenced Jimmy Page and so many others. But here, in this little venue called The Old Band Room, he was simply Martin, a particularly noteworthy member of a community of folk enthusiasts and lovers of “trad songs.”

It was pitch dark on the drive in, but I knew that on either side of me was mind-blowing scenery in the daylight. Eerie quiet, very dark cloud cover, completely deserted back country roads, some steep climbs and descents (the Peak District, mind you). I arrived and walked in, and there was Martin Carthy, seated, patiently waiting until start time while a group of amateur fiddlers played (two accordionists, a guitarist, maybe others) for a chatty crowd of about 75–100 people. I captured this audio on my phone, with the only photo of Carthy I was able to take:

This performance was presented by Royal Traditions, a folk music club that hosts concerts, singalongs, jams, etc. They’ve got a little booklet of “house songs” on the seats, almost like a hymnal. When the fiddlers stopped, the emcee grabbed his own accordion — actually, it was a concertina — and the entire room broke into song, reading lyrics from the booklet. All ages, elderly, some teens and young adults, everyone knew the stuff. It was a group warmup, a mood setter, an act of fellowship. I took audio of that too:

At his age, Carthy does not seem especially comfortable performing, though he does it, selflessly, to the delight of this evening’s patrons. (Tickets were about nine British pounds.) He uses a unique drop-C tuning that he had to keep tweaking continuously. His percussive style and unusual phrasing and articulation on the instrument were still in evidence, his emotional connection to the old songs palpable. He often forgot lyrics — easy to do on some of these English folk epics, with their countless verses. But people in the crowd would help him with the next line and he’d jump right back in. I have audio but I’ll err on the side of caution, not knowing whether Carthy would approve.

I think he would, however, approve of this: Carthy in Bristol in 1996, playing “The Famous Flower of Serving Men.” I come back to this clip occasionally and am always amazed at its power and depth, as I hope you’ll be. ◊