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11> 0514302 76969 establishment,” he hastened to clarify. “I wish it were called the Legion of Honour, but it’s not.” Still in all, he thinks it’s good for govern- M artin C arthy ments to give cultural awards and is suitably honored by this one, which has previously gone to such outstanding folk performers as Jeannie Robertson. To decline under such circum- stances, he said, would have been “snotty.” Don’t More importantly, he conceives of his MBE as recognition he shares with the whole Call Me folk scene. “I’ve been put at the front of a very, very long queue of people who work hard to make a folk revival and a folk scene,” he said. Sir! “All those people who organized clubs for nothing and paid you out of their own pocket, and fed you and put you on the train the next morning, and put you to bed when you were drunk! What [the government is] doing, is taking notice of the fact that something’s going on for the last more than 40 years. It’s called the folk revival. They’ve ignored it for that long. And someone has suddenly taken notice, and that’s okay. A bit of profile isn’t gonna hurt us — and I say us, the plural, for the folk scene — isn’t gonna hurt us at all.” In the same year as Carthy’s moment of recognition, something happened that did hurt the folk scene. Lal Waterson, Carthy’s sister-in- law, bandmate, near neighbor and close friend, died of cancer. While that was obviously painful, Carthy cast it in a positive light. “It was a fabulous death, if you can have such a thing,” he said. “From the diagnosis to her dying was only 10 days. And she was very funny about it. She was absolutely realistic, and occasionally very, very funny. She was an amazing woman, she was a lovely woman, and she had no room for any kind of sentiment that was phony at all. She was about as dignified as a person can be.” In the midst of this period of personal ups and downs, Carthy is as happy and productive a musician as he has ever been. In the last few By Steve Winick years, his family group, Waterson:Carthy, his genre-bending band, Brass Monkey, and his trio project with Chris Wood and Roger Ron Hill Wilson have all toured and recorded, some of them several times. And somewhere along the ver since the Queen of England was lobbied for,” he answered. “Because these way, Carthy found time to locate, arrange, awarded folksinger Martin Carthy days, the awards don’t come from above. Theo- learn and record material for his first solo the MBE last year, well-meaning retically, they come from below. People actu- album in a decade. fans who don’t know any better ally put you up for it and they lobby, and they Why did it take so long for Carthy to record E (and wisecracking cutups who do) write letters, and they say why it should alone? “I never got ’round to it, is the short have been adding the honorific “Sir” to happen, and ‘Why hasn’t it happened yet?’ Carthy’s first name. So let’s clear this up at the This guy in Scotland had been lobbying for it answer, or the glib answer really,” he answered. outset. Is a Member of the Order of the British for about three years. And [my wife] Norma Then he expanded: “I like to think about it, Empire entitled to be called “Sir”? knew, and I knew nothing. And she came in very hard. I like to use solo stuff to spread out, “No, no, no, no!” Carthy answered in an with this big Cheshire-cat grin on her face one to broaden out, to find out where things are April 1999 interview. The award, he night with this large parchment envelope — I going, and all the other collaborations are sort explained, does not make you a knight. “I couldn’t believe the quality of the envelope! of the fruit of that. think there’s four levels. There’s the Member And there it was.” “If you’re working with other people, your of the Order, there’s the Officer of the Order, Carthy admits that he thought twice about contribution can only be decent if you yourself which is an OBE, which is what Aly Bain has, accepting the award; he’s not a supporter of as a soloist are in fairly decent shape,” he then there’s a Commander, then there’s a imperialism in any form, and the name “British continued. “And when I’m doing that, I tend to Knight-Commander.” Empire” in the award’s title rankled at first. In put all my eggs into one basket. Like when I Just how did Carthy get picked for this fact, he’s still a little uncomfortable with it now. was working with Dave [Swarbrick], when we elite group? “It was actually something that “Don’t imagine that I’ve suddenly become did those two albums Skin & Bone and Life & 48 October/November ’99 #84 Limb, all my recording eggs were in one basket. I started doing lots with Waterson:Carthy, and all my creative eggs were in one basket. But it came upon me last year that it was time, I’m getting on, and I really ought to think about this again and do another album. I rang Tony [Engle] up at Topic and said initially, ‘I’ll do a song album and an instrumental album.’ ” Carthy has since put the instrumental album on his back burner, but the song album went ahead as planned, despite initial difficulties. Acollection of songs that have affected Carthy over the years, Signs of Life is the most diverse record he’s ever done. “What we think of as folk music is not the only thing that’s affected me through my life, and I’m more and more reluctant to exclude a whole lot of other things,” he explained. “It’s very hard to exclude ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’It’s hard to exclude rock ’n’ roll!” Besides Elvis, Signs of Life covers the Bee Topic Records Brass Monkey - Martin Brinsford, Richard Cheetham, John Kirkpatrick, Martin Carthy, and Howard Evans Gees and Hoagy Carmichael, as well as some of Carthy’s favorite traditional songs. What just took the imagination by storm. Because The tune Carthy picked is normally asso- ties it all together, he said, is that “they’re all what they did, apparently, was to lock them- ciated with the ballad “The Duke of Marlbor- in one way or another signposts” that taught selves in a theater, in the fire escape system, in ough,” which Carthy reckons he’ll never sing him something over the years. As a single a European theater where there was no lighting again. “I’m not really interested in singing a example, Carthy brought up the Bee Gees, at all. So they went, and they shut themselves song in praise of the Churchill family,” he in there, and they played explained. “Bugger ’em! He had his five years let’s pretend. They between 1940 and 1945, and he did a great job. played a game with each Before that he did things like turning the army other and came up with onto miners and stuff like that. Stuff ’im, and that song. And what an his descendants, as well.” Carthy has sung the opening line! ‘In the song, however, for the tape that accompanies event of something an exhibit at an armaments museum. “I thought happening to me...’ It’s three or four times about doing that,” he wonderful stuff!” recalled. “But then I thought, no, that’s a pretty For Carthy’s core good thing. The best place for armaments is in fans, the traditional a museum! So let’s sing a song which deserves songs are probably the to be in a museum, too. So I sang that. But it Lahri Bond most exciting things on was definitely sung as a museum piece. The Waterson:Carthy - Martin Carthy, Norma Waterson, and Eliza Carthy the disc. As far as the traditional music is whose song “New York Mine Disaster, 1941” concerned, Carthy said, “I wanted to put a taught him “that pop singers in 1965 or 66 few things down that I’d been thinking about could write about stuff like that, and it could be for a while. I wanted to do ‘Sir Patrick effective. I heard them doing it more recently, Spens,’’cause I’ve been busting to sing it for in a much more stripped-down arrangement, in years. And I finally decided that really and which you can actually hear them do the song. truly I ought to do the very best tune of the And it’s done beautifully, and Robin Gibb is lot, which is the tune that Nic Jones did. I’d actually a great singer. always avoided it, because Nic and I worked “To hear them do it now, and to realize on sort of parallel furrows for a long time. what a tremendous song it is, is to realize that And it’s nice to have a kind of diversity, it shares something with traditional songs,” he different looks at songs. But, having said continued. “Traditional music can deal with a that, it’s the best tune for God’s sake, so stop two-line verse, a three-line verse, or a four-line messing about and go do it!” verse.

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