Martin Carthy

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:35

My castaway this week is the folk musician Martin Carthy, a highly influential figure in the world of traditional music. Fifty years ago he was at the forefront of the English folk revival, inspiring not just his fellow countrymen, but Bob Dylan and Paul Simon too.

Presenter0:51

At his first gig, he was paid ten bob, all the lemon tea he could drink in a plate of spaghetti. Now he's part of a folk dynasty. His wife is the celebrated singer Norma Watterson, and their daughter Eliza is as renowned for her fiddle playing as she is her voice. Aged just six, she would get up on stage with her parents and join in. My Castaway, on the other hand, was brought up in an atmosphere that encouraged him to rise above his station. There was music in his Anglo-Irish background, but it wasn't encouraged and rarely, if ever, talked about. He says, In my opinion, there is no such thing as bad music. There may be bad players or bad singers, but I don't like the idea of inferior music. And on that basis, Martin Carcy on the basis that there is no such thing as bad music, it must have been terrifically difficult for a man who's spent his life surrounded by music to narrow it down to just eight discs to day. How did you go about choosing?

Martin Carthy1:45

Shut my eyes and stuck a pin in an imaginary list. I just chose eight, but I could have I could have chosen a dozen times.

Presenter1:54

Now here's the thing. When you came in here to day I mean music obviously has been a constant presence in your life since you were a teenager. I thought you would have to walk through our studio doors holding a guitar in your hand. When you when you go somewhere without your guitar, does it feel a bit odd?

Martin Carthy2:09

Naked. Dee! When I was walking out the door, I kept thinking something's wrong, something's wrong.

Presenter2:16

Always there.

Presenter2:17

What about people generally? And I'm not talking about specifically the very dedicated folk audience here. I'm talking about all of us. We tend to have a very strong reaction for or against music that we would classify as folk music with a c capital F. Why do you think people have such strong reactions for or against it?

Martin Carthy2:34

I think folk music has has had a lousy press for a very long time. It's almost almost as though people are taught to

Martin Carthy2:43

look down on their own music. People are em embarrassed by their own music and by their own dance, by Morris dancing. Morris dancing is the one that gets all the flack and all the hilarity.

Martin Carthy2:53

Yet when you put ninety-nine percent of people up in front of a Morris dancer and have him dance in front of them, they will be blown away.

Presenter3:03

Lots to talk about and lots of lovely music to hear, I have to say. Tell me about your first disc today. What are we going to hear and why have you chosen this? Well, it's Maria Kalas.

Martin Carthy3:09

My family never liked her, so I inherited this apparent dislike. And I used to sing in Leicester a lot. And there was a friend of mine there called Tony Savage, who had been an opera singer, and he had worked at La Scala Milan. And his thing on a Sunday morning was to make himself breakfast and then go and sit in his front room and he would play his records.

Martin Carthy3:32

So he made me this beautiful breakfast and gave me a tray and he said, You sit there and I sat down in this particular chair and right in front of me was a large speaker. And as I tucked into my breakfast, he put this record on. And I couldn't eat because the tears just flooded down my face. And when the track had finished, he just took the record off, put it in a case and handed it to me. And that's this record.

Speaker 24:05

Uh

Presenter5:00

Maria Callas singing Orendeti l'asperme from Bellini's I Puritani. That was recorded in nineteen seventy one. In fact, you're seventy one, uh Marcia McCarthy. Um how comfortable are you with being the grand old man of the folk scene these days?

Speaker 25:09

Uh

Martin Carthy5:09

More than

Martin Carthy5:15

As long as I can get to my next gig, I'll be all right. I d I don't think about it actually, I just

Martin Carthy5:21

I just love doing gigs.

Presenter5:22

Yeah, and you still, I mean, you you tour a lot. Oh, yeah, 100, 200. Right.

Martin Carthy5:26

Temple

Presenter5:27

It it's quite a discipline touring. It's really hard physical graft to give of your all one night, then get on the tour bus or get on the train or get on the plane and do it all again to, you know, the next night or two or three nights later.

Martin Carthy5:40

Hard work. You just get on with it. It's uh it's your job. It actually seems these days that the harder a time I have getting to the gig, the better I'll do when I'm there. Because when you're travelling there, you start to focus on what's going to happen when you get there, and you can then deliver what you hope are the goods.

Presenter5:59

I saw a terrific photograph of you from a long, long time ago, it has to be said, standing next to there's there's a a line-up of uh young, vigorous men looking like they're having a great time, and in among them are you and Bob Dylan. Back in those very early days, that would have been the beginning of the sixties, he he came over, and of course the influence of British folk music was tremendous upon him at the time. What what do you remember from him in those early days?

Martin Carthy6:21

What I think is that the influence of British folk music shows in his later work. He started writing these really, really anthemic tunes.

Martin Carthy6:30

And he I think he picked up on that notion in England.

Presenter6:34

What what did you think of him? I mean, he was this little guy that nobody knew.

Martin Carthy6:36

Wonderful performer. I I don't believe that anybody who saw his first performance at the King and Queen down in Foley Street will be able to say that he gave a bad performance. He stood up, did three songs and absolutely knocked everybody flat.

Martin Carthy6:51

People loved him.

Presenter6:53

Flat.

Martin Carthy6:53

No. The story started going round that he had stayed with me when he came came to London. No, he didn't. But we actually did chop up a piano. Ah, right. But the piano was a wreck. Half the keys were missing. And it was a very, very cold winter. And my wife and I decided that we would have to chop up the piano. So we took it bit by bit. And then by the time Bob came along, we were down to the frame. And I'd been given for my birthday a samurai sword. And Bob came round to have a cup of tea. And Dorothy, my then-wife, then said Make a firemart. So I got the sword, and he stood between me and the piano. He said, You can't do that, that's a musical instrument. I said, It's a piece of junk and went to swing at it, and before I could swing at it, he was whispering in my ear, Can I ever go?

Martin Carthy7:45

So we hear the sword and he du he chopped the firewood.

Presenter7:49

Well, I I have to say no Bob Dylan in your list, but tell me what we are gonna hear next.

Martin Carthy7:50

But

Presenter7:52

Uh

Martin Carthy7:52

Um it's uh Les Compagnion de la Chançon. This is in French. It's Les Trois Cloche. It's the three bells. It's the bell for for for for christening, for marriage and for death.

Presenter7:52

Um

Martin Carthy8:01

And why do you love it?

Martin Carthy8:03

Because it reminds me of everything that's wonderful about um about music. I must say this particular version is an opportunity to shoehorn two people together, because I only had eight choices and this would have had made it nine. So Edith Piaf is singing with them.

Speaker 28:19

Unaccola chaspoade for ne power.

Speaker 28:29

Do you

Martin Carthy8:43

Uh

Presenter8:43

Yeah.

Martin Carthy8:47

A pen, a pen una falama, en por fable qui la calama, au texien ton de la domes.

Presenter8:56

That was Les Trois Cloche, written by Jean-Viagilet, performed by Les Compagnon de la Champson, featuring Edith Pief. Um, as a little boy, you would have heard that then, uh, Martin McCarthy. It rooted you to the spot, did it? What would you have been in the kitchen of the radio was in the kitchen? Um, your mother, though, had moved around a bit. She was born in Manchester. She moved at one point, I think, to Canada. How how did she end up back in England?

Speaker 19:06

Martin Car

Speaker 19:08

Absolutely.

Martin Carthy9:10

But yeah, this is where the radio was in the kitchen.

Martin Carthy9:20

Well, they came back from Canada at the at the at the start of the First World War.

Martin Carthy9:24

Her her mother had died.

Presenter9:26

Yeah.

Martin Carthy9:26

All of a sudden.

Presenter9:27

Yeah.

Presenter9:28

Um yeah, she was twelve. Um I get the impression your mother was a rather engaged and political character in her own way.

Martin Carthy9:34

But have your own way.

Presenter9:35

Absolutely.

Martin Carthy9:35

She became involved with this network of troublesome priests. They were a group called the Catholic Crusade and it was a Church of England socialist movement. And the man she very much admired was the vicar of Thaxted. It was a man called Conrad Noel. He became vicar in the early years of the 20th century and he actually formed the very first revival Morris team. And he outraged people by having them dance in the church and dance out of the West Door. And your father had an Anglo-Irish background. What was his job?

Martin Carthy10:13

When he was twenty one he was the youngest the youngest person elected to to office. He was he was a councillor in Stepney.

Martin Carthy10:21

Because my granddad was quite active in the Union, the family were all Thames lightermen.

Martin Carthy10:27

And my dad was the first one not to be a Tensleisman because he won a scholarship to the grammar school.

Presenter10:33

And so when your grandfather put him forward as a potential counsellor, do you think he was a great hope for the family to advance itself? Yes, he's going to be educated, he's going to get into politics.

Martin Carthy10:40

Yeah.

Martin Carthy10:41

He's gonna

Martin Carthy10:42

politics and he was going to rise above you know that that was that was the idea.

Presenter10:45

And in your words it was a tranquil and repressed

Martin Carthy10:48

It it w yes, it was very quiet. We had a we had a good upbringing, but there was repression. But it was uh

Martin Carthy10:58

I have hardly ever visited on us.

Martin Carthy11:01

I mean, when I became interested in folk music, my mum got quite excited.

Martin Carthy11:07

But the music I did that really, really excited them at the time, because I was a chorister.

Martin Carthy11:12

and I sang at the Queen's Chapel of the Savoy, and the the music there was was basically um Thomas Tallis, Thomas Tompkins, Thomas Weelts, and especially Orlando Gibbons, with a bit of Vaughan Williams thrown in. But the stuff that I really did love was the Orlando Gibbons.

Martin Carthy11:30

Let's have a

Presenter11:30

Some music. We're on our third of the morning.

Martin Carthy11:32

What are we going to hear now? Oh, this is uh called La La Partenza. It's uh Genoese Longshore Men. Um this is your first bit of I suppose actual folk music and it's it's what I do love about folk music it is the sort of things that people get up to, the sort of things that ordinary people invent out of thin air.

Presenter12:20

La Partensa, a recording of Genoese Longshoreman by Alan Lomax. That brought you a great deal of pleasure, Martin Carter. Wonderful. Yes.

Martin Carthy12:26

Oh, it's wonderful.

Presenter12:27

Um, music in the house, then. Did your parents enjoy music? Did they sing?

Martin Carthy12:32

My dad sang little bits of opera. My mum would sing bits and pieces of traditional song. She'd been involved very much on the fringe, because of being intacted, of one of the earlier folk revivals. But it was very much on the fringe. And she loved the idea of people's song, you know, traditional song. My father had played the fiddle as a young man.

Martin Carthy12:57

And it's it's a piece of real stupidity on my part that I didn't that I didn't actually make the connection. You know, an East End Irish boy playing fiddle, what kind of music is he going to play? Especially when it turns out that hi it was too rough for my mum.

Martin Carthy13:14

who asked him to stop.

Martin Carthy13:16

When did you find out that he did play that music? When he was well over seventy and he came to the Cambridge Folk Festival.

Martin Carthy13:22

I was in charge of the guitar workshop, and I got a friend of mine, Paul Brady, to come up and play a couple of jigs and a couple of reels, and he did just that.

Martin Carthy13:31

Walked off the stage, and I introduced the next person at the guitar workshop went to sit with my dad, who'd come to the festival,'cause he lived not far away.

Martin Carthy13:39

and he had this far away look in his eyes, and he said, Whoa, I haven't heard that tune for a long time I haven't heard that tune since I was twenty one years old.

Martin Carthy13:48

I like it.

Martin Carthy13:49

The wind that shakes the barley, he said, The wind that shakes the barley.

Martin Carthy13:53

and he had never let on.

Martin Carthy13:56

And I just shook my head, and I remember thinking

Martin Carthy13:59

First of all, why the hell didn't you tell me?

Martin Carthy14:02

And then I had to say to myself, you knew he played fiddle.

Martin Carthy14:06

Why didn't you ask?

Presenter14:08

Suck.

Martin Carthy14:08

Did you know then, was there a fiddle somewhere in the house?

Presenter14:08

Did you know?

Martin Carthy14:15

But there was a guitar in there that had a couple of strings missing, and there was this fiddle that had a couple of strings missing. It was his fiddle. So when did you actually pick up a guitar? When well, I picked up my dad's guitar when uh shortly after hearing the Rock Island Line for the first time.

Presenter14:29

Ah.

Martin Carthy14:30

That was Lonnie Donegan. What was it about that that shook your brain? It was just the simplicity of it. I remember seeing him on television and not being terribly impressed, but I would go back to the Rock Island Line.

Martin Carthy14:41

And there was something incredibly exciting about it. It's simple, there's nothing to it. It's hardly even a proper song. So you picked up a guitar and what? There was an immediate rapport? Oh, I just loved it. I wanted to play it. I really wanted to learn it. And the first person I heard who made me really want to play the guitar, well, the first two people actually were both black and American. First one was Big Bill Brunzy.

Presenter14:51

Poor.

Martin Carthy15:04

and the second person,

Martin Carthy15:06

was uh the woman who wrote Freight Train, who was the housekeeper of the Seeger family in Washington DC, and they had no idea that she played. Indeed, we're going to hear her now, yes. So how did they find out that she played? Well, uh Peggy told me that one of the family walked into the house and heard this guitar music and said

Presenter15:15

And see what happened.

Martin Carthy15:22

Who's that? They didn't recognise it. Oh, somebody's put a record on.

Martin Carthy15:25

And they walked in into a room and there

Martin Carthy15:29

It was the housekeeper playing one of their guitars, left-handed and upside down. Let's hear it now.

Speaker 215:38

Freight train, freight train, run so fast Freight train, freight train run so fast

Speaker 115:43

Pray

Speaker 215:48

Please don't tell what train I'm on, they won't know what round I'm gone.

Presenter16:06

That was Libercotton and Freight Train. And you were describing during that, Martin Carthy, that you on one occasion you you sat watching Libbercotten play that in a rather loft

Martin Carthy16:13

Oh, just cried my eyes out. It was just I mean, she was she she more than anybody else is, I think, responsible for the way I like to play today'cause it's just beautiful playing and I w I want to play like that.

Presenter16:26

So there you were, aged sixteen, playing well, we can call it professionally for the first time, because, as we know from the introduction, you got ten Bob all the lemon tea you could drink in a plate of spaghetti. Where were you playing that night? In a coffee bar called

Martin Carthy16:38

B

Presenter16:39

Right.

Martin Carthy16:39

which is at the bottom of Primrose Gardens. And how were you doing as a teenager at school? Were you were you doing okay?

Martin Carthy16:46

Probably up up to a year after Rock Island Lion I was doing okay, but I began to become less and less interested in that. I was doing classics. And your father wanted you to study classics at university. Until the day he died, kept saying, When are you going to stop doing this and get down to university and study classics?

Presenter16:56

It's a university.

Presenter17:03

Your many fans might be surprised to know that they nearly lost you to the world The Bright Lights of Acting. You did have a part in the nineteen sixty one thriller Return of a Stranger.

Presenter17:13

At you played the lift boy.

Martin Carthy17:14

I played them list boy up. Yeah, how did that happen? Well, um

Presenter17:15

Yeah, I did

Martin Carthy17:18

One of my very old friends worked in films, and his stepfather and his mum all worked in films. One of them got me this part.

Speaker 217:29

Uh

Martin Carthy17:30

Didn't really expect much to come of it, and it didn't.

Presenter17:33

Uh and what about when was the point you decided your dad wanted you to go and study classics at university, you very much didn't want to do that, so what happened? You you left school at what age?

Martin Carthy17:33

Uh who

Martin Carthy17:41

I walked 17 and I walked out of school at the end of the spring term and I went home and said to my mum, I'm not going back next term. And she said, well, you better go and get a job, hadn't you?

Presenter17:42

Right.

Martin Carthy17:51

So I did, and I w uh and I picked up again, just dumb luck. I picked uh picked up a job as as um prompter at the open air theatre.

Presenter18:01

And did you want at that point did you think, you know what, I'm going to try to make a living out of music?

Martin Carthy18:06

No, at that time I thought I'd I decided I was going to be an actor, and it was a sort of a rude awakening that being an actor in the real world was a bit different from the school play.

Martin Carthy18:16

It was a r a rude awakening and then then I started doing music. Well, I was I'd I'd been playing the guitar and doing music. It was it was my other skill that I thought.

Presenter18:20

Well that was

Presenter18:25

Your mother once said to you there was no such thing as security. So I'm wondering what it was she did want for you then. Did she want respectability? Did you? What was she?

Martin Carthy18:27

Yeah.

Martin Carthy18:32

She wanted me to be happy. What she and my dad had promised each other when they married was that he wanted to be a poet, she wanted to write, and she had a real talent for it. And so they lived together like that for a while and then he went and got a job. Proper job. You must look after the family. It's your duty. And she was very disappointed.

Martin Carthy18:56

and she didn't do any writing, because she was busy bringing up children.

Martin Carthy19:00

And he went out to work.

Martin Carthy19:03

And I think

Martin Carthy19:05

She was very happy when I just just ditched everything and took a chance and went out into the world and I have been incredibly lucky.

Presenter19:13

Time for some more music then, Martin Carthy. What are we going to hear next? We're on your fifth choice.

Martin Carthy19:17

Oh, yes. Well, this is Norfolk fisherman Sam Lana singing The Lofty Tall Ship.

Martin Carthy19:24

Hearing this chain changed my life. I'd gone along to the Ballads and Blues, which was uh Ewan McColl's club, and I'd watched Ewan McColl lay his own self aside while he f l served the audience up a banquet of his favourite, favourite English folk singer, who was Sam Larna. And this was the very last song he sang that night, and I walked away walking on air.

Speaker 119:47

Where's we were God sailing Five cold frosty nights?

Speaker 119:56

Five cold frosty nights and four days

Speaker 120:03

It was there we aspire'd A lofty shape.

Speaker 120:12

Yay, come bear and down on us, brave boy.

Presenter20:20

That was Sam Larna and Lofty Tall Ship. So, Martin Carthy, you became, well, a pretty well-established part of the music scene in London in the early 60s. I mentioned earlier meeting with Bob Dylan. Occasionally, you would play onstage with him. You also met around about that time Paul Simon. Tell me about meeting him. What do you remember?

Martin Carthy20:40

Well, Paul Simon had written to uh a folk club in Brentwood offering his services as a resident singer for five pounds a week. And this would have been what year? It's about 63. And this guy was going Dave was going around various people and saying, I've been this bloke Paul Simon has written to me and he's offered himself five quid a week. What should I do? Do you know him? And my response was, Well, all those Americans who come over and stand up and perform in front of an audience know what they're doing because they're taught to do it at school. So he's worth five quid a week for a couple of weeks and if he's rubbish you can sack him. And of course he came over and he was better than a good performer. He was electrifying.

Presenter21:20

Well, of course you know what I'm going to ask you about. Martin, can you explain to me how Paul Simon well, I mean, got hold of Scarborough Fair? Because it became, so legend has it, something of a bone of contention between the two of you, because I should explain to people who are not versed in the story

Speaker 121:33

We don't know.

Presenter21:35

That of course Paul Simon would go on with Art Garfunkel to do the soundtrack to The Graduate. That was five years later. Scarborough Fair became one of the biggest musical hits to come out of that soundtrack.

Speaker 121:40

Give me

Presenter21:45

And there was a bit of argy bargy, apparently, between the two of you about the fact that that was your arrangement and that he had pinched it.

Martin Carthy21:52

Yeah.

Presenter21:52

What happened?

Martin Carthy21:52

Well, at the time uh

Martin Carthy21:56

And we were all rubbish.

Martin Carthy21:58

And everybody had a piece which was their piece. Davy Graham had Angie, Bert Janch had Strolling Down the Highway, I had Scarborough Fair, and we all basically learned each other's pieces because it all helped us to improve. Later on, Paul Simon took it away, he could play it, he recorded it with Art Garfunkel, who wrote the canticle that sits on top of it, and it became the signature piece of the graduate. It's very silly. It's a traditional song. It doesn't belong to me. It belongs to everybody. Which is sort of the crux of Folk, isn't it? That it everyone else is. It belongs to everybody. And I really should have taken notice of that straight away.

Presenter22:31

Everybody and I'm really

Presenter22:35

But between the two of you then, all those years later, when you sat down and said, You know what, actually this is a piece of nonsense, we need to get over this what were the circumstances of that? When had you gone to see him in concert? Had he come see you perf?

Martin Carthy22:46

He phoned me. He was on a big European tour and said, I'm doing three nights at the Hammersmith Apollo. Can you come along? And I went and I managed to get a message to him and I it was was brought in and uh he was very s solicitous of my needs. Would you like me to play this guitar or that guitar? And I said you play any guitar you want and we sang Scarborough Fair together.

Presenter22:46

Order.

Martin Carthy23:10

as his encore. Did you? Yeah. It was a it was a really lovely thing to do. I have to say we're not going to hear that now, but what are we going to hear? It's time for your next piece of music. Um well, the next one is uh

Martin Carthy23:23

One of the great singers around at the moment. And she happens also to be my wife. And her name is Norma Waterson. And she's singing a song about Joseph Locke. And it's written by Richard Thompson in the 60s in Covent Garden. And the pub had special opening times because of the market workers. So the clientele of the pub were the market workers, opera goers, and people from UFO. There was a club called UFO, UFO. It was where Pink Floyd first took root. And they were all sitting there having a drink, and they were talking, and somebody's talking about being musicians. And suddenly, this man stood up and said, You're not proper musicians. I'm a proper musician. My name is Joseph Locke. He had escaped to Ireland.

Speaker 124:13

He

Martin Carthy24:15

To elude customs and excise, and somebody said, I don't know who it was, well, if you're Joseph Locke, sing us a song.

Martin Carthy24:23

And Richard said he sang, and he said, And he wasn't half bad.

Martin Carthy24:28

And Richard has never found out whether it really was him or not. So he wrote this song, and that's the story.

Speaker 124:36

Yeah.

Presenter24:36

My name is Joseph Locke.

Presenter24:40

God bless all here and staked your pleasure.

Presenter24:47

If you refill my glass.

Presenter24:50

I'll sing all the Maria.

Speaker 124:54

I'll sing the old bug road

Speaker 124:58

A short

Speaker 124:59

I've gone away.

Presenter25:03

That was Joseph Locke, sung by your wife, Norma Watterson. You met your wife, Martin Carthy, for the first time in nineteen sixty one. She was your y to become your second wife, but the path of true love did not run smoothly. It was m it was many years before you really properly got together. Explain to me what happened if you can.

Martin Carthy25:20

In brief, we fell at love at first sight, but she was married and I wasn't. Next time we met, I was married and she wasn't. Then in nineteen sixty eight she went away and worked as a D J in Montserrat, and when she came back she wasn't married and neither was I.

Martin Carthy25:38

But she was engaged to be married.

Presenter25:41

You think being two musicians, your timing would be better than overall as you're challenged. You've got three daughters then, two from your first marriage, Rachel and Lucy, and then Eliza from your marriage to Norma. And you've also got a stepson, Tim. How did you introduce all these children to music? I mean, did you deliberately introduce them to music?

Martin Carthy25:59

With Liza, what we would do, if there was music going on in the house is spontaneously, we would go upstairs and get her out of bed and sit her under the table and she'd play with her dollies and have a snooze and occasionally make noise.

Presenter26:14

And then there was an occasion when you were on stage, I think, with your wife, performing in front of me, a big crowd, about fifteen hundred people, and the little tug comes at dad's jeans to say I want

Martin Carthy26:20

Boom.

Martin Carthy26:23

To say I want to do it too, don't you? Oh, she announc no, she announced beforehand that she was coming onstage with us.

Martin Carthy26:28

It was at the Filed Festival and she was she wouldn't be told no. So I said, Will you stand with us and then when you know one of the songs, just tug my jeans and I'll lift you up and you can sing along.

Presenter26:30

The city would

Martin Carthy26:40

And I'd be announced the first song, and she tugged at my jeans, and I lifted her up onto my hip, and she sang absolutely perfectly. And I popped her down, and that was the next song, tug, tug, tug, tug. And eventually I just kept her on my hip and she sang every song.

Presenter26:52

And the first time that you I'm and I'm when I say performing now, I mean a proper performance, this is you, Eliza, and your wife performing together was when?

Martin Carthy27:01

Oh, it's nineteen ninety one. Elkins, West Virginia. It's a weekend of uh of lectures and Liza came along with her friend just, you know, to d for the trip. She was sixteen. She'd been playing fiddle for a year about a year and a half then. And uh at the end of the week the tutors would have to give the students a concert. That'd be absolutely electrifying.

Presenter27:24

What was the feeling of standing up there on stage with one of your daughters and your wife and making a beautiful sound together?

Martin Carthy27:29

I mean, I had when I said it to Norma, God, isn't this extraordinary, singing with the family? she just looked at me as though I was daft'cause she'd done it all her life. But there is something extraordinary about blood relatives singing together, you know.

Martin Carthy27:42

The Bee gees, the Nolans don't care whether you like or hate the music. The the blend that they achieve is something that can only be marvelled at.

Presenter27:51

And you've chosen not the three of you singing together, but you've chosen Eliza singing on her own here. Tell me why particularly briefly you've chosen this track.

Martin Carthy27:56

Yeah.

Martin Carthy28:00

Fuck.

Presenter28:00

I like her

Martin Carthy28:00

doing j doing the piano because she actually can impart a feeling of real calm to a dramatic song. And this is a very quietly dramatic song. Comes originally from a woman called Mary Ann Caroland, an Irish singer, and it's just just a beautiful song, a beautiful story.

Presenter28:18

In London so far they live there.

Presenter28:26

Hail Lady of great beauty and great mind.

Presenter28:34

And on to this lady fair.

Presenter28:39

I became a servant there and in be.

Presenter28:45

She took a grave.

Presenter28:53

In London, So Fair, sung there by your daughter, Martin. That was, of course, Eliza Carthy. So what about I mean, folk music, of course, has these occasional resurgences into the popular mainstream. You know, it it might be Billy Bragg doing it, it might be Paul Weller doing it, it might now be Mumford and Sons doing it. How do you feel about that? Do you feel it is always inevitably diluted, or do you always welcome the idea that millions of people might be enjoying something that has its roots in folk music?

Martin Carthy29:19

Well, what I think is that when when it gets it has it has its resurgence, there there is inevitably benefit.

Martin Carthy29:26

because people will suddenly become aware and they'll think, Oh, no, this stuff is not quite so uncool after all. Maybe I'll go and investigate it more. I can remember in the eighties when things were quite bleak, somebody saying to me,

Martin Carthy29:40

Well, what seventeen year old's going to be interested in that nonsense? And my reply was always, Well, this seventeen year old was.

Martin Carthy29:47

This one here, I was seventeen, I heard Sam Lana, and it changed my life. Why would it not do that do the same for anybody else? And when Billy comes along, and Mumford and Sons, people start looking at where okay, that's folk music, let's have a look at what says folk music.

Presenter30:03

Yeah.

Martin Carthy30:03

And they get frequently get bitten by the bug.

Presenter30:06

You're a veteran of many a folk festival. You must be pretty handy at pitching a tent, because of course I'm I'm going to pitch you away on this desert island. Well you'll be able to to survive, will you? Once in my life have I camped.

Martin Carthy30:18

Really?

Martin Carthy30:20

I'm going to have to do a bit of quick learning, I think. Yes. Yeah.

Presenter30:23

How would you be with your own company on the desert island?

Martin Carthy30:25

Uh

Martin Carthy30:26

I think I'd be okay.

Martin Carthy30:27

I'll miss the family, but then I'm going to have two reminders of of that. The musical remote. That's going to be pretty, pretty warming, heartwarming.

Presenter30:36

It's time to go then, Martin Carthy, to your final choice of the day. What are we going to hear?

Martin Carthy30:40

Is a man called Paco de Luthea, and I first heard him in the 1970s. I remember being absolutely.

Martin Carthy30:48

thunderstruck at his playing.

Martin Carthy30:50

I thought it I actually thought this man's mad. He was astounding.

Martin Carthy30:54

And b I did a gig at Gecho in in the Basque country. It was a festival. And we all went to this c this concert. And part of it was

Martin Carthy31:04

Pacado Lucia with with a with with a band and the first part he played uh on his on his own.

Martin Carthy31:11

And he really moved the audience extraordinarily. Somebody said to me later that his great friend and sometime uh musical partner, El Camaron de la Isla, had died and uh that they weren't sure whether he was going to play or not, but he did play and he was fabulous.

Speaker 131:48

Pellar culta

Presenter31:53

Uh

Speaker 231:57

Hey, come on.

Speaker 232:02

Se per ne mimente.

Speaker 232:13

Lagara si Puerta.

Speaker 132:17

Ah

Speaker 232:19

Yeah.

Speaker 132:19

Uh

Speaker 232:23

Bye-bye.

Presenter32:27

Sepalean enimente, played by Paco de Luthia, with the singer El Cameron de la Isla. So it is time to give you the books now, Martin. As you know, I'm going to give you uh the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take another book along. Can the Bible

Martin Carthy32:41

It will be the case.

Presenter32:41

King James

Presenter32:42

Good

Martin Carthy32:42

Proper language. Wonderful. Um am I allowed uh the full set of Dickens?

Presenter32:49

Uh

Martin Carthy32:50

Uh

Presenter32:50

Well, if we can find that in one enormous edition then yes, you may take that. And of course you're allowed a luxury too. What would you like your luxury to be?

Martin Carthy32:51

One enormous addition.

Martin Carthy32:58

Well

Martin Carthy33:00

I mean, I it actually has to work out as being very simple. I want my guitar, I suppose, because I do love it.

Presenter33:06

Right, that's yours. And if you had to save this is going to be agonizing for you, if you had to save, because of course you've got your wife and your daughter on your list of eight, which one disc and I don't want to cause any family ruptions here, which one disc are you going to save? Which one, oh dear?

Martin Carthy33:14

And I don't want

Presenter33:20

I think I'll take Libracotton. Ah, yes, deftly done.

Presenter33:24

Martin Carthy, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. My pleasure. Thank you.

Presenter34:02

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