Great musical innovator set for south Shropshire concert

Martin Carthy, winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2014 is set to appear at SpArC Theatre in Bishop's Castle on Thursday, March 31.

The venue has recently been able to release more tickets for Carthy's appearance.

A spokesperson for SpArC said: "For more than 50 years Martin Carthy has been one of folk music’s greatest innovators, one of its best loved, most enthusiastic and, at times, most quietly controversial of figures.

"His skill, stage presence and natural charm have won him many admirers, not only from within the folk scene, but also far beyond it."

He has been involved in partnerships with, amongst others, Steeleye Span, Dave Swarbrick and his award-winning wife (Norma Waterson) and daughter Eliza Carthy.

There have been 40 albums from his partnerships, but Martin has only recorded 10 solo albums, of which the much anticipated Waiting for Angels (Topic TSCD527) was the latest.

He’s a ballad singer, a ground-breaking acoustic and electric-guitarist and an authoritative interpreter of newly composed material.

He always prefers to follow an insatiable musical curiosity rather than cash in on his unrivalled position.

Perhaps, most significant of all, are his settings of traditional songs with guitar, which have influenced a generation of artists, including Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Q Magazine has lauded him as "Arguably the greatest English folk song performer, writer, collector and editor of them all."

And the The Telegraph has said: "Carthy is a master of the ballad of substance, songs that tell stories, whether they are traditional, his own or from contemporary writers."