Strangely enough, my first published song was in calypso form. Ewan MacColl published it in New City Songster.(about 1976) I'd just learned how to play calypso style rhythm guitar from Derek Brimstone, a folk festival in Skegby, Nottinghamshire.

I chose to write it in West indian patois, because i was writing a song about my afro caribbean pupils at school in the inner city of Birmingham getting in trouble with the law. At the time I despised Bob Marley's music with its injunctioon to the kids to smoke ganja which was getting them into trouble and making them an easy target for the cops, plus all the religious rastafari bullshit.

I wanted a west indian song form that wasn't reggae.

Water off a ducks back, when it came to English folkscene of course. To be a serious folksinger, you needed to whingeing about the first world war in the style of a 17th century farmhand. Either that or Jasper carrot. In fact the traddies thought you were Jasper Carrot.