Martin Carthy

 Chapel Arts, Bath

There was a certain awkwardness; as well as an overwhelming sense of good will, at Chapel Arts on Wednesday night. At the end of January, the folk-world had been saddened by the death of folk-legend Norma Waterson; less than three weeks later, at the age of 80, her husband, the if possible even more legendary Martin Carthy was back on the stage, in a smallish venue, doing what he does. Singing folk songs. 

Would it be okay? Was it even quite decent for us to be in the audience?

We needn't have worried. Martin flowed onto the stage as he always does, looked out into the audience, said "Hello!" and went straight into Hard Times of Old England, in that unique declamatory style he always uses, and the aggressive, almost percussive guitar. He hunches over while he plays; as if his fingers won't do the right things unless he's watching them, and sings the guitar line to himself to keep himself in tune. Having hoped that the hard times would not last long, he looked into the audience and said "There you go..." and continued his set. 

There were anecdotes about Ewan MacColl and Sam Larmer and the turn-of-the-twentieth century pub landlord from whom Martin's preferred version of the Trees They Do Grow High was collected. He keeps forgetting the names of the source-singers he wants to credit and looks them up on his IPhone. (The landlord was named Penfold: he gave the song to Vaughan Williams.) He does three different songs about Napoleon, and notes that he isn't aware of a single traditional English song about the Duke of Wellington. He finishes, as so often, with an astonishing guitar version of the Downfall of Paris, a march which Wellington wouldn't allow his army to play after Waterloo because it wasn't British enough. It's astonishing the melodies he drags out of his instrument: he once said that a guitar was like a whole orchestra. 

A couple of times he says "I screwed that verse up" and repeat it; he manages to do the first verse of My Bonny Boy is Young again when he's trying to start Scarborough Fare. It's a different version of Scarborough Fair: when he heard the new tune he said, and I quote "Hello tune; I think you and me are going to be great friends". He doesn't do the familiar version any more, he says, because it has too much baggage, but this baggage has nothing to do with either Bob Dylan or Paul Simon. And he gives us the most fundamental folk song of all, the one about the dying-and-rising god who is literally beer but may also be the spirit of England and the spirit of folk music. ("Folk music" says Martin at one point "Is HARD.")

Here's little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl
And brandy in a glass.
And little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl
Proved the stronger man at last.
For the hunter, he can't hunt the fox
Nor so loudly blow his horn,
And the tinker, he can't mend his kettles or his pots
Without a little bit of John Barleycorn.

He rattles through the very challenging ballad about the blind harper who steals the kinds favourite horse for a bet without a hitch. I have heard him say it is his favourite song. It runs (if I counted correctly) to twenty six verses. It's the harper's wife who comes up with the scheme to win the bet: Martin says that musician's wives always have a drawer full of "plan Bs".

Play play now you John Harper
Give me music to my ear
And I will pay you for your song
Three times for your grey mare

I have lost count of how many times I have heard Martin give me music to my ear, and I will carry on listening as long as he is able to play. Like John Barleycorn, he's irrepressible, indestructible, and we couldn't possibly manage without him.

Buy me some beer next time I go to a gig