Thought I was SO careful!


Amazing evening at The Globe, Topsham!

You know when I was 17, I used to play air guitar to Southbound Train, and My Little Woman. I worshipped this guy. He seemed like a young God. When I got to see him at Cousins - he seemed quite chunky compared to last night. Last night, he looked a bit jovial version of the Headmaster in Bash Street Kids - almost skeletal. We had both grown into being old guys in the intervening years.

Deadpan delivery of jokes - or maybe he was bored with his own stories. Gentle humour - rather than uproariously funny. Still he was appreciated.

The music was interesting. Not really the slick gunslinger of guitar any more - Spider John, somewhere along the way, has become a great traditional style interpreter of folksong. If you love tradtional music - you will love Spider John.

SJK plays a 12 string these days - a battered old Epiphone with its full complement of strings. He hits the strings in such a skillful fashion that the modest sized belly of the guitar sounds as big as an empty rain barrel - the tone is mighty. He plays few chords these days. His guitar style (although in standard tuning) is reminiscent of Martin Carthy's. He plays a lots of melody lines - with that powerful magisterial sound. He plays a little ragtime picking also.

The songs are from the great American folksong book. Careless Love is delivered as folksong - not a blues. We get the Cuckoo, a little Woody Guthrie, something from Blues, Rags and Hollers - Good Time Charlie, Running Jumping Standing Still - but no Creepy John (a song surely composed in the wake of the Boston Strangler slayings - and to my mind, at the time pointing to a way of folksong advancing into the 20th century). For the rest its quite brilliant traditional fare. He is accompanied on fiddle and bones by Chip Smith.

The support was by Dave Peabody and Stuart Piper. Stuart could not make his guitar sound through the PA (which was a pity as he is obviously a great slide player). Dave is of course a legend in his own right. What a man!