Mary and I were living in a top floor flat in Hampstead, London. Alexis Jorner, Martin Carthy, Long John Baldry and Cyril Davies. The music and the fashions were everywhere and wouldn't have believed then that Danny Thompson would play on our first LP and many more. Is was time of dudes with John Lennon hats, Bob Dylan worn leather jackets, guitar shoulder slung, drifting in and out of the coffee houses. Slowly, I began to put together an idea based on so many influences down so many years.
Nothing is really new.
It has been said and done and the secret is to turn it around to appear fresh and new. Dylan took Woody Guthrie to the ultimate and beyond. Paul Simon drifted through the English folk clubs to pen 'Homeward Bound', on Widnes railway station. Folk roots had travelled to America and in the guise of Blues, Rock n'Roll and Country, came across the Atlantic to be re-shaped and sent back again. In those days I still saw kids being beaten up because they had long hair.