Public service announcement! I'm very pleased to have helped set up the first and only UK gig since the early 1980s (when he last played Cambridge Folk Festival) for my first performing hero and a real genuine American folk blues legend.

He'll be at London's intimate Green Note in Camden on Weds 30th Sept. Details here

Some quotes from others, several of whom you may have heard of . . . !

"With my newly learned repertoire, I then went further up the street and dropped into the Ten O'Clock Scholar, a Beat coffeehouse. I was looking for players with kindred spirits. The first guy I met in Minneapolis like me was sitting around in there. It was John Koerner and he also had an acoustic guitar with him. Koerner was tall and thin with a look of perpetual amusement on his face. We hit it off right away. When he spoke he was soft spoken, but when he sang he became a field holler shouter. Koerner was an exciting singer, and we began playing a lot together. I learned a lot of songs off Koerner …" (Bob Dylan, in Chronicles Vol 1, 2004)

"The word inimitable could have been coined for Spider John Koerner. A staggeringly singular guitarist and singer of blues and American traditional songs, he has influenced many musicians from Bob Dylan on down, but no one has come close to his unbelievably funky guitar style." (Martin Simpson, 2009)

"The country-blues singer, songwriter, and barrelhouse guitarist Spider John Koerner – one-third of the legendary sixties folk trio Koerner, Ray, & Glover – has been performing in the bars and folk clubs of the Twin Cities ever since Bob Dylan was enrolled at the University of Minnesota (he was one of the first to turn Dylan on to folk music). Bonnie Raitt covered one of Koerner's songs on her début album, and his fans have included John Lennon and David Bowie. His influence on twentieth-century music aside, watching Koerner perform might be the closest you can get to understanding how, more than eighty years ago, Charley Patton alone on guitar kept a roomful of people dancing and partying until the sun came up. (The New Yorker, 2008)

"Defying his years, Spider John Koerner was the night's real treat. His ramshackle demeanor (all gangly arms and legs and tucked-in flannel shirt) and ragtag trio captured the true essence of a hootenanny: spirited, communal, and completely off the cuff. Koerner was lean and nimble as the band tore through gritty folk-blues. Hard to believe the man is pushing 70." (Boston Globe, 2008)