Martin Dominic Forbes Carthy MBE is an English singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in English folk music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and later artists such as Richard Thompson, since he emerged as a young musician in the early days of the folk revival in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s.
Performing with The Imagined Village at Camp Bestival, July 2008
Martin Carthy with Maddy Prior and Norma Waterson
Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson at a Waterson–Carthy performance in Cranleigh, April 2006.
The folk music of England is a tradition-based music which has existed since the later medieval period. It is often contrasted with courtly, classical and later commercial music. Folk music traditionally was preserved and passed on orally within communities, but print and subsequently audio recordings have since become the primary means of transmission. The term is used to refer both to English traditional music and music composed or delivered in a traditional style.
Original score of Pastime with Good Company (c. 1513), held in the British Library, London.
The first page of an 1840 printed version of "Barbara Allen" one of the most widely collected English language folk ballads.
Cecil Sharp
Pentangle performing in 1969