The late Johnny Speight once said, the trouble with creative writing classes is that they are full of people who couldn't string two words together slagging off George Bernard Shaw.

Similar thing. The kind of people who say Tim Hardin wasn't folk music are just ignorant. They simply haven't thought deeply enough about the nature of folk music. For them its just a bag of stylistic tricks to which they are personally committed

The Lady Came from Baltimore is one of the best outlaw ballads ever written. Okay, so it wasn't written about contemporary events, but half the 1798 Irish rebel songs weren't either.

Another thing he talks about brilliantly in his songs, is our generation's preoccupation with drugs.

I think Tim made quite a few wrong calls in his career, but its easy to to say how to do the drive if you're never likely to be in the driving seat.