There was a time when Martin Carthy earned his living working behind the scenes in theatre, but the pull of life with a guitar and a repertoire of freshly unearthed folk songs, won out. Theatre 0 Folk Scene 1. That time was back when the naescent folk boom was just rumbling rather than booming. Yer man was in the mix, right at the dawn.
It took a while for him to venture into a recording under his own name – previously he’d been in folk groups as well as on TV, playing the clubs with his heavy percussive guitar styling – come 1965 he cut his debut, cannily titled ‘Martin Carthy,’ with Dave Swarbrick along for the ride but uncredited because his then boss wouldn’t be too pleased to find him playing sessions for other artists.
Issued in 1965 on a very mainstream label, Fontana, it’s this offering that Martin has returned to all these years later. Sixty of them to be exact and in that time both his stature and that of the album have grown and grown. It’s not too outrageous a comment to say that Martin Carthy has been the bench mark by which others have been measured, some fell short, some became his friends and colleagues. Nor has he ever stopped being a tireless crusader for traditional music. You don’t preserve it in aspic, you drive it forward by adaptation and relevance.
As you might expect there are differences between the two, with ‘Transform Me,’ seemingly a reflection of its older counterpart and where that was the work of a younger energetic Carthy, this one is a considered, gentle even haunting item which holds adventure, attraction and appeal.
The songs have all become common currency of the folk scene over time, titles like ‘High Germany,’ ‘Sovay,’ ‘Lovely Joan,’ ‘The Trees They Do Grow High,’ have all been taken, altered and reappeared in various guises many times, a fact that Martin Carthy no doubt finds quietly satisfying. And yes, that song is also here, you know the one Paul Simon put in his back pocket and made a whole stack of money from, yet ‘Scarborough Fair,’ remains mystical and magical in its simplest form. With a voice which has aged and worn with its singer Carthy holds your attention, evocative, touching and appropriate, his guitar not so nimble but still subtle. To these ears ‘Ye Mariners All,’ from which the title of the recording comes with daughter Eliza bowing a powerful fiddle and her father picking out the melodic guitar figure is striking, though the afore mentioned ‘Lovely Joan,’ runs it close, a wistful and playful, three minutes which frolics along at a fine lick.
‘Transform Me Then Into A Fish,’ completes and compliments the circle of Martin Carthy’s remarkable career. A pause rather than a full stop then. He tours still and shows no sign of allowing advancing years of to slow him down. Long may it be so.
Simon Jones.
transformmethenintoafish.com
