Expansive 20CD collection documents live and session performances across a 57-year period from 1965-2022. Along the Road Forever is a comprehensive journal of Martin Carthy – his solo career and his side projects – the essential companion to all those albums that you’ve collected.

A MAJOR INFLUENCE

If it wasn’t for Martin Carthy, I wouldn’t be sat here right now. I’d be somewhere else, probably somewhere far less appealing. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now, either – I’d be doing something that’s far less rewarding and far less fun. The impact that Martin Carthy has had not only upon my musical preferences but upon my lifestyle and life choices is immeasurable.

I make that above point because I know that I’m not alone. I’m just one of a generation who were fortunate enough to have been around when Martin Carthy was not only introducing us to the folk traditions of these islands but also providing the guidance we needed to understand how those traditions fitted with everything else we were interested in. For that, alone, Martin Carthy deserves the oft-bestowed title of National Treasure.

MARTIN CARTHY – EVERYWHERE

As soon as I heard Martin’s signature percussive guitar style and his characteristic vocal delivery, I was hooked. Sweet Wivelsfield (1974) was the first Carthy album that I bought and devoured and from there onwards, I’d be in the shop on release day for each new solo album they appeared: Crown of Horn (1976), Because It’s There (1979), Out of the Cut (1982) and so on. Each new album was as eagerly-awaited as Christmas Day had been just a few years earlier.

The folk-rock albums were next. When The Albion Country Band’s Battle of the Field album was finally released in 1976, the warmth of Martin’s voice on songs such as Albion Sunrise, New St George and The Gallant Poacher was, perhaps, the definitive sound of that era of folk-rock. Ashley Hutchings‘ Son of Morris On was released the same year and, again, Martin was a central feature – notably with his plodding guitar interpretation of Old Hog or None and as vocalist for the sprightly Postman’s Knock. Add Martin’s stints with Brass Monkey and Steeleye Span and it’s easy to understand how he pervaded my record collection and influenced my life.

DEFINITIVE & COMPREHENSIVE

But, as Kevin Boyd points out in his informative liner notes for this boxset, Martin’s albums tell only part of the Carthy story. For the complete picture, we must look to Martin’s live performances. And that’s where Along the Road Forever steps in.

‘Definitive’ and ‘Comprehensive’ are words that are often cast about without too much thought but, as far as Along the Road Forever is concerned, they’re thoroughly appropriate. This boxset is, truly, a monster. Over 20 discs, just about every aspect and every phase of Martin’s career is covered. Martin’s solo career is broken into minute detail through sessions with John Peel and Andy Kershaw. There are live concert and festival recordings galore. Space is given to his ventures with The Albion Country Band, with Dave Swarbrick, The Watersons, Brass Monkey, Steeleye Span and alongside daughter Eliza.

Along the Road Forever is a collection that will – literally – give lasting pleasure. There’s 22½ hours of music here. 328 tracks, including 237 unique repertoire performances, spanning the period 1965-2022, most sourced from master recordings. The set also includes an 80-page hardback book featuring a major new essay by biographer-to-folk-royalty, Clinton Heylin and a whole treasure trove of unseen photographs, many of which come from Martin’s personal archive. And, with every boxset, there’s an exclusive photograph, personally signed Martin himself.

AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY

After his ‘purple patch of the 1970s, Martin Carthy’s studio output started to slow, but Martin hadn’t gone away. His priorities lay elsewhere, that’s all. Those of us who were able kept in touch by attending Martin’s live appearances -with Swarb, with Brass Monkey, with Norma and solo. Followers denied that luxury maybe drifted away.

Perhaps the greatest benefit offered by this magnificent collection is that it fills any void that may have been left by the hiatus in Martin’s recorded output. As Kevin Boyd (again) points out in his liner notes, Martin was, throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, a regular guest on such BBC flagship folk shows as Folkweave and Folk On 2 . And, as already noted, he performed frequent sessions for John Peel and Andy Kershaw on their various Radio 1 shows. as Kevin Boyd says: “These sessions form a kind of alternative history that compliments and occasionally contradicts the ‘official’ versions of songs found on the studio albums.”

Martin Carthy is an artist who deserves a comprehensive encyclopedia of his life’s achievements. Along the Road Forever might just be that document. As Bob Dylan once said, as he reflected upon Carthy’s far-reaching influence on contemporary songwriting and folk revival culture: “If you didn’t know, your songs and your melodies have been with me since we first met. We’ll meet each other down the line somewhere.” Amen to that.

Watch Martin & Eliza Carthy perform Died For Love at the 2014 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards – a recording featured in the boxset – below:

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