The Fat Angel Sings

Davy Graham was quite a pioneering guitar player, starting in the ’50s. He was the first guy to really play a range of styles. He’s influenced by traditional music, he’s influenced by jazz, influenced by North African music, and he’d blend all these things together into this very hybrid style that he had. And he did this record with the wonderful English traditional singer Shirley Collins, and they would do interpretations of traditional songs, songs like ‘She Moves through the Fair’ and ‘Nottamun Town.’ In these interpretations you’d have kind of jazzy guitar influences coming in, and it really—it showed the possibilities to the next generation of what can be done with folk music. I think it’s a hugely successful record. I don’t know how many it sold at that time, probably not that many, but a lot of people who went on to have folk music careers really paid attention to that record and saw many, many possibilities on the horizon. As a guitar player he influenced people like Martin Carthy, John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, John Martyn—the next generation of acoustic guitar players all paid attention to Davy.”