the birthday fairy wrote:
> [all ruffled and tapping its foot like julie andrews in thoroughly modern
> millie]
This gives me a great excuse to report on Martin Carthy's
60th Birthday party concert at The Apollo Theatre in Oxford
last night. (It's Martin's birthday today). Wearing a long white
tunic shirt, at one point he was struggling to get his finger picks
out of the pocket of his tight jeans' and mumbled, "That's what
happens when you dress up like Julie Andrews on your birthday."
It was a wonderful show - very emotional at times - hosted
by Fairport Convention, with a cast of thousands, it seemed.
Highlights for me included
- Simon Nicol, fondly dedicating a song to Fairport's long-
departed singer, who, as he put it, "fell off the stool some
years ago", and singing a tear-jerking version of Sandy
Denny's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes".
- Simon Nicol again, giving a clue to a very special guest
by playing the guitar intro to 'Scarborough Fair', with
Dave Pegg walking off stage and coming back to say
"he's not arrived yet", and playing instead a recording of
Paul Simon's spoken introduction (from last year's London
concert) talking about Martin's influence on him back in
the mid-60's.
- Martin, introducing the man he described as "for me, by
far the greatest folk musician alive today, Dave Swarbrick."
Although in a wheel chair and hooked up to a drip, he still
managed to spark up some magic fiddling on a couple of
songs with Martin. Although he has been very ill for quite
a while, one UK national newspaper had actually announced
that he had died and had even included a full page glowing
obituary about him a couple of years ago. - I liked this, in
last night's the concert program -
"Reports of his death were much exaggerated."
- Ashley Hutchings, singing a rewritten version of Dylan's
Million Dollar Bash, accompanied by Fairport, with Rick
Kemp, daughter Rose Kemp and Eliza Carthy on back-up
vocals. Calling it 'Young Martin's Million Dollar Bash', it
included a new verse about Martin going to see the Queen
to receive his MBE, at which point in the song Maddy Prior
walked out on stage and, mimicing the Queen's accent, said,
"I don't know much of 'your' stuff. One prefers Bert Jansch"
(it brought the house down!).
- Ralph McTell, (billed in the program as 'Surprise Guest'),
saying how everyone had kept his appearance a secret
from Martin as a special surprise, BUT, within two minutes
of arriving back-stage at the theatre, they had bumped into
each other. "Oh, shit!, he said.
- French singer Gabriel Yacoub, whose songs I didn't
understand but who still really really got to me! (reminded
me a lot of early Bruce Cockburn singing in French).
- Tom Robinson, introduced by Martin as "one of the most
inexplicably underated songwriters around", proving the point
with a really powerful solo spot.
- Norma Waterson, with Waterson:Carthy, singing The
Grateful Dead's 'Black Muddy Water' before the whole
cast of thousands, plus Leon Rosselson, John Kirkpatrick,
Roy Bailey, Brass Monkey, and the Bampton Morris Dance
Team all came back to sing 'Moonlight on the Water', with
Dave Swarbrick rubbing Martin's back warmly throughout.
A great tribute to a lovely man.
PaulC
