Martin Carthy was certainly an influence on me. I got very interested in British folk music in the early 70's. One route was: John and Tony -> Young Tradition -> Waterson's -> Coppers. Then a friend played me a cut from a Steel Eyed Span record, saying "don't think about the arrangement, just listen to the words" - it was King Henry on their Below the Salt record. Then I discovered that Martin also sang alone or with Swarbrick without all the electric nonsense. The third path was Scottish: MacColl, Redpath, and Norman Kennedy. This thread started with Carthy being important to the existance of mudcat and if we say that mudcat is somewhat dependent on the digital tradition and that the digital tradition is somewhat dependent on me, then yes, Martin Carthy was part of my turning serious about folk music in general and British folk music in particular, which led to my collection, which led to the digital tradition, which led to mudcat.