From his repertoire of uncommon, largely British ballads, use of oddball modal melodies to his very unique guitar tunings (we ain't talking DADGAD here), he remains at the top of my list.
The story goes (true or false) that Paul Simon basically stole his arrangement of the old ballad Scarborough Fair, and went on to make millions with it. Because of that there was once some bad blood between the two of them, but I have read that that has been worked out.
About 45 years ago I was walking past the Denver Folkcenter Center and noticed a poster that Carthy was playing in their small venue that very night only. Oooohhh. The problem was that I had agreed to start a brand new job that same night as well. What to do? I did the responsible thing and went to work. As it turned out, it was a shitty job anyway and I will always regret not stiffing the job to go see him perform, especially as I've never had the chance since.
Thanks for this post and Happy Birthday to Mr. Carthy.
Many of us learned the cleaned up, Americanized version of Billy Boy in grade school. Here is Carthy's somewhat more suggestive version:
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