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So it wasn’t just the songs by this point. It was the stories, the…
…the notion. I wasn’t at the stories yet. I was hooked by this idea that there was stuff going on under the radar. Its fin- gers seemed to get everywhere. I just loved that idea. And information was so hard to come by.
Well, I was going to ask about that. Obvi- ously you’re known for having this vast repertoire, but back in the late ’50s and early ’60s, how do you go about building a repertoire like that?
That’s a really good question. It was very hard to get into the Cecil Sharp House library because – and I’ve said this as a half joke before, but it really was true – they’d look at you [tilts his head back and stares at me down the edges of his nose] as if to say, “We are the guardians of The Tradi- tion, and we’re guarding it from you.” That seemed to be the whole attitude, but that took a 180-degree turn when they got a new librarian there. Her name, god bless her, was Mrs Noise. I swear to god. Ruth Noise [editor’s note: it turns out Noise is spelt Noyes]. She was a sweet- heart. She’d basically open the door and say, “Well, what would you like?” I didn’t know what to ask for, really. I just wanted some songs. It was people like her who enabled people like me.
The Cecil Sharp collection was on microfiche. I remember when Dave Swar- brick and I were working on stuff in the mid-’60s, we’d be zipping through the microfiche and he could read it all. My reading was quite good by that time because I’d bought the journals of the Folk Song Society and the EFDSS. The journals of the Folk Song Society I’d bought for five quid, the lot – from 1898 to 1931 (or ’32). It was fascinating. They always printed the very interesting tunes. I loved it and I want- ed it – the weirder the stuff, the better!
But I have to go back to ’58 or ’59, and say that it was people who made a difference to me. That guy, Mick Baker’s dad talking about Leadbelly, and then saying that the Lonnie Donegan song was an Irish folk song.
Jeannie Robertson at the Singers Club, 1962
Shortly after that, I met my first prop- er folk singers. I met Jeannie Robertson, an Aberdeen traveller. She was astounding. She knew what she was doing – she made herself a bit of a woman of mystery, but that’s alright. I sat with her all afternoon, and by the end of that afternoon I was beginning to understand a few of the words that she was saying [laughs]! It was the Aberdeen accent – there’s not a lot of it left – and it was beautiful.
So, you were sitting with these people and they were singing songs to you?
Talking, really. With Jeannie it was definitely talking. Then I saw Seamus Ennis. A local hero called Robin Hall told me, “You’ve got to go to The Troubadour. That’s the place to go.” Now, I’ve really come to believe that there’s no such thing as coincidence. I went down to The Troubadour on that night because some- thing was going to happen, and some- thing in my head said, “Time to go to The Troubadour…” I walked down the stairs and I heard pipes. I thought, “Oooh! Bag- pipes! I know what they are.” In those days, the cellar of a coffee bar was always half-light. There was Seamus Ennis, sit- ting in the half-light, playing the uilleann pipes – pumping them; wrestling an octo- pus! What he got out of it… phew! Then he played the whistle, and then he sang. I was skewered.
Then there was this fellow called Roy Guest. Bit of a chancer. He got himself invited on stage as a guest at what was then called the Ballads & Blues, which was Ewan MacColl’s club. Later on it went out of existence and a couple of years later The Singers Club started. That was Ewan sticking his head over the parapet. He made himself a target so people threw things at him, including me. But none of us would be where we are now if it wasn’t for someone like Ewan being noisy about traditional song, and having a club where you didn’t sing American songs if you were English. “You sing what I want you to sing, and if you don’t like it, don’t come. This is my club. Those are my rules. You work it out.”
Didn’t he have a thing, though, where you had to sing in your own regional accent? Or is that a myth?
Well, yeah he liked that. But, you
know, he was from Salford and he sang in this theatrical Scottish accent – more than passably good because his mum was from Perthshire. She was apparently lovely. I’ve talked to Neill, Ewan and Peggy’s son, because he’s a mate. He absolutely loved her. His younger brother, Calum, used to try and outwit Granny, and she always had him [laughs]. He’d say “I can’t go to school”, so she’d feed him awful food so that he’d be glad to go and have school dinners. Wonderful!
But anyway, this guy, Roy Guest, got an invite from Ewan to sing at Ballads & Blues using an outrageous pitch. He said, “I’ve just been in Canada for five years col- lecting Canadian folk songs.” And, of course, this is gold. Ewan said “Come along tonight. I’ve also got Sam Larner, the Yarmouth fisherman.” Roy was pretend- ing, “Oh, great! I know Sam.” Of course he didn’t [laughs].
Roy asked me to go along with him, because nobody else would go. I used to annoy him, because I was at that age where I’d attach myself to any guitar play- er by a piece of string about two inches long [laughs]. I’d trail along. I think he asked me to go because I think he thought Ewan would attack him and throw him out, but he didn’t because Ewan was much more interested in showing his favourite English singer to an audience. “This is the real thing, kids. Whaddayareckon?”
So I went along, and Sam opened his mouth… [Martin sits agog, gazing into space as if he’s seen the light]. I thought I knew some of these English folk songs because I’d learnt them at school. I thought I knew Oh No John, but I didn’t know Oh No John like that!
Sam absolutely played with the audi- ence – he knew what an audience was for. He’d sing a verse and then he’d stop and say [broad Yarmouth accent], “Am I t’go on?” And the audience would roar. He’d sing another couple of verses and then… “Am I t’go on?” He sang one of Jeannie’s songs, Maids When You’re Young Never Wed An Old Man, and it was a completely different version. I was totally captivated. Ewan had obviously had him down at his house for a few days and he’d talked to him. Ewan didn’t sing that night. He was there to facilitate Sam Larner; to give Sam Larner to the audience. He wasn’t even interested in the fact that Roy Guest immediately revealed himself to be a fraud [laughs].
He just let it ride. He wasn’t going to punch anybody. He was going to have a good time and show the world this great bloke. He let Roy hang himself and he let Sam loose on the audience, including on this 17-year-old.
Here’s something I hear all the time: “What 17-year-old is going to be excited by folk music?” Well, hello! This fucking 17-year-old was blown away by Sam Larn- er. He wasn’t a pretty singer, but his pas- sion was something else. And the melodies he sang… This has become like a
Photo: Brian Shuel
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