Martin Carthy – Kitchen Garden Cafe, Birmingham – 11th March 2024

“The Daddy” plays Brum…

Eliza’s, I should add, of course, but if the affection that outpours from her to her pa is anything to go by, well, there was just as much here tonight. Following on from the kick up the jacksie offered by Jon Wilks, on their enormously well-received joint tour: ‘A Special Night of Song and Celebration’ (we caught their appearance at a packed venue at the 2023 Manchester Folk Festival) one of the founding fathers of the 20th century folk tradition has embarked on a few more solo dates. The term legend is far too freely bandied about and most so called legends are, at best, tall stories, obscured through smoke and mirrors, but Carthy is undoubtedly one. I was lucky enough to witness that and recapture a flavour of his magic.

But first a few words about the venue, with the KGC being assuredly one of Birmingham’s best kept secrets, a positive jewel in an everyday bleaker horizon of music venues of style and purpose. In trendy downtown King’s Heath, Moseley’s raffish sibling, and conveniently opposite the fabled Hare and Hounds, this bijou listening room has been promoting quality musics for upward of 10 and fast approaching 20 years.

Bijou? Well, let’s say compact, with a capacity for around 80 bodies, and where the stage is the floorspace in front of the seats. Yes, it can get comfily cosy when full, as it was this night, but the view out the side window, to the garden centre, all part of the complex, takes away any feeling of being squeezed. By day a café, by night, entering through sister bar and eatery, Fletcher’s, it is a sparkly paradise, fairy lights scattered across the bare brick walls, themselves adorned with posters of all the great and good, upcoming and before. Yeah, I’m a fan, as indeed are many of the performers, who return time and time again, the pleasure of a performance there outweighing perhaps higher footfall elsewhere.

On arrival Carthy was pottering about by his microphone and guitar case, coffee in hand, and, if not there to welcome his audience, de facto, that was what he was able to do, renewing many an old acquaintance. When I shamefacedly revealed I had only actually seen him play live once, and that was 50 years ago, we were able to share notes around that selfsame venue, the Lewes Arms Folk Club, Lewes, Sussex. (Yes, of course I was under age?!?) He may not have remembered the night, but he remembered the couple that ran it, Vic and Tina Smith, a simple example of the repository of memory Carthy has to hand.

Becoming as well known for his garish shirts as his playing, it was prompt on 8 he began to play, having, in the interim, made his way, cautiously, up and downstairs to the dressing room. I am pleased to report his garish stagewear was exactly the same as his garish streetwear. A few goodnatured cusses were aimed at his guitar, as he shared his bafflement for how the perfect soundcheck tuning can go so wrong, nothing bad, mainly of the bloody and bastard variety, delivered all with a knowing wink.

It was with Hard Times Of Old England he opened, the lyric as salient now as ever. So what of the voice? Sure, it is a different instrument, the bold and brash brassiness now all but gone, leaving a delicate whisper of no small poignancy, if anything, with the higher registers now the more nuanced. Likewise, his guitar play feels slightly hesitant, the combination seeming to leave the vocal and accompaniment slightly at odds with each other. Which has a delicious connection with, say, the backbeat of Charlie following Keef, and works in a contrary sense of deliberacy. (And possibly not the first reference to the Rolling stones tonight, either.) Being possibly a little rusty, one verse was sung twice, ahead he realising that and berating himself, again with a good humoured acceptance, ahead picking up just where he left off. None of this mattered one iota.

The opportunity to play songs long lost in his repertoire was not lost on him, as he played High Germany and The Trees They Do Grow High, anecdotes around the singers who introduced him to each preceding each delivery. He even mentioned, with a flourish and ta-dah, the recent re-release of his eponymous debut album, from 1965, upon which each of those songs featured. He then surprised the audience with another song from the same album, using the opportunity to dismantle any lingering resentment toward “others” who had taken the song and ran. In fact, Paul Simon came out very well from his remembrances, not least the support offered the Carthy clan during lockdown. It was a lovely rendition, as he wrung all the emotion out of rather more verses than I ever recall the Bridge Over Troubled Water hitmakers managing. A slightly new arrangement, too, the progeny of which he explained.

Struggling to find his capo, until he found it in his case, he nevertheless elected to try Willie’s Lady in a different key, instantly transposing his guitar play, as if it were as simple as flicking a switch. Finally, for this first set, he remembering there ought to be an intermission, he regaled us with an instrumental, derived from one of many songs about or for Napoleon. Rather than the many written by the English, this was actually the tune written by Napoleon’s army, a verse for each and every of their fallen. We were spared that, with the now entitled Fall of Paris showing a still old fair amount of dexterity in this fingers. (We also learnt that, whilst Napoleon was the subject of many, many a broadsheet ballad, Wellington was never the subject of any, bar one in association with a failed bid to make the then aged General prime minister.)

The second half opened with the delightful tale of Bendigo, The Champion Of England, from the Waterson Carthy album with his daughter and wife, the true tale of an 1812 prize fight, as documented as Roud V7648; a ribald tale, possibly sung tonight due to the relative locality of the loser, Caunt, aka the Tipton slasher. Two more Napoleon songs followed, The Dream Of Napoleon and The 18th Of June, all the while giving essential background detail, both about the songs and not. For instance, the 18th of June is the date of the battle of Waterloo, should we have forgotten. Furthermore, bro-in-law, Mike Waterson, was seldom a man to thank, should he appropriate a tune. There was also an apology around the shrinkage of his setlist since the great badness. Rather than the received wisdom, that this was around his caring for his late wife, Norma, during her prolonged illness and subsequent death, which, of course, he did, but more around the fact he always had to rehearse all his singing in the car, as she was not a stern enough critic, through her own peerlessness in just singing out, with neither need for practice or preparation. And you couldn’t go out driving in lockdown.

A delightful moment came during Nancy Of London, as a glass tipped noisily to the floor. He looked up, smiled and winked, ahead of saying a theatrical shhhh. As the audience convulsed, he immediately apologised and backpedalled, citing it, anyway, in the wrong key as it clashed with the stone floor. Beginning again, unbelievably, a second glass tumbled, with a retort of “that’s better” from the singer. When I Was A Little Boy then preceded a graceful rendition of Lovely Joan, all relishing the words and delivery, primed by Carthy’s pointer that, by definition, anyone on a milk white steed was likely, always, to be a shit. A brief senior moment ensued, as the lyrics of a next song floundered and were lost, leading him into a brisk acapella A Stitch In Time, another Mike Waterson song, but with a tune that Carthy had found for it, and subsequently lost to him.

Bearing in mind he won’t be seeing again his 82nd birthday, and that he had been singing and talking the best part of two hours, the certainty of what next to play was running dry. And witness, here there was no setlist, here there was no autocue or convenient tablet to prompt every right or left turn, this was all , seemingly, impromptu and spontaneous, if based on some idea of what might be called upon. Which led to possibly unexpected delights, which included a delicately balanced Bonnie Woodhall and a spoken version of The Funeral. a wonderful Irish song of alcohol related shenanigans, of the sort that arises when you go to the funeral of someone not yet dead. The story leading into that was one of his own tales of Irish ways, touring in Ireland, as two fellas joined him, walking through the village, slotting into step aside him. Introducing themselves as, first, Mickey, and secondly, Jagger. What were the chances, he mused.

Finally and to close, it now closer 11 than 10.30, an adaptation of My Son John, with the additional lyrics added in his The Imagined Village version of 2010. The insertion of lines about Afghanistan and cluster bombs were chilling, and every bit as real as the original lyric, wherein the aforesaid John lost his legs in a chase with a cannon ball. Whoever said folk music was rooted in the past? Certainly not Carthy, who thereby wrapped up an evening that began with an album from 1965, ending with one from 45 years later. Most the songs much, much older.

A wonderful evening and one to be cherished. O, that we had a Rick Rubin in this country, someone to match the majesty of Carthy’s fading grandeur and to ally it to a musical celebration of a life long and well lived. I find there something emotionally profound in an older voice, as demonstrated by Johnny Cash’s Rubin helmed later projects, thinking also of Charlie Louvin’s Who Knows Where The Time Goes or Ralph Stanley’s White Light/White Heat. Any takers?

Here is Scarboro’ Fair, from October, 2023, with thanks to Broadside Hacks for appropriation of the clip.

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