Ahem.

My very favourite folk singer is (was?) Woody Guthrie. I read someone once (who thought Woody was great) who said that Woody was a mediocre singer, a mediocre guitar player and a mediocre harmonica player. Somehow, to say the least, it worked.

My opinion of Nic is that his earliest recordings showed something of a derivative vocal quality (not a criticism), but he later found his own voice par excellence, certainly by the time he made Noah's Ark Trap. I think that when I'm contemplating great artists such as Woody and Nic that I'm not going to be analysing and dissecting over-much. Their best work is, as I said, of a piece. When I think of Nic singing Clyde Water I don't think of his guitar work and his voice (I might do if I were a guitar player trying to emulate his playing, or a singer trying to emulate his singing, but I'm neither). I think of him doing that song in his inimitable, wonderful way.