It's not often that we have the chance to watch a living legend perform. Rarer still is the privilege of being able to have the opportunity to do so from the comfort of your living room. But that's what's on offer on June 12. Thanks to Live to Your Living Room, Martin Carthy and all of the love that he's cast over the English folk scene for decades will be, well, live in your living room.
Martin Carthy (MBE) has been working the folk circuit for those unfamiliar with his work since the 1960s. Did you dig Simon & Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair? Well, you were digging Carthy's Scarborough Fair: its DNA is slathered all over the bickering American folk duo's version of the song. He was a member of Steeleye Span, The Watersons and more recently, The Imagined Village, along with his daughter, fiddle and swoon-worthy vocalist Eliza Carthy. If you want to bone up on Carthy's catalogue, there are more than a few great retrospective collections that span his career. Alternatively, you can get yourself up-to-date with his latest recording, Transform Me Then Into a Fish. It was released this month.
Carthy is 84 years old this year. A good age for a very good man who's spent his life preserving and promoting the traditional music of his native England. While Gods willing, he's got years ahead of him, there's no telling when the next time–or if this is the last time–you'll have the privilege of seeing the man perform, especially in a venue where pants are optional.
So get on it: Tickets are available to purchase now, with one needed per household/per device. Depending on the exchange rate, the cost of admission should be around $24. That said, times are hard. You can pay a little less, if need be. Or, if you find yourself flush, you can pay a little more and show Mr. Carthy how much you appreciate all of the art he's pumped out into the world.
The show takes place on 12 June at 7:25 pm, British Summer Time. That's 12:25 am for folks on the East Coast. Yes, that's late for us Gen X-types. But there's good news. Everyone gets 72 hours of access to a recording of the gig included with their ticket, so you can watch it whenever you manage to roll your old bones out of bed.
Image via Scarlett Recordings UK, used with permission.
Previously:
• Listen to Paul Simon's unusual solo recording of 'The Sound of Silence' from 1965
