Seeing Burl Ives mentioned, in a current thread, reminded me to enquire what Mudcatters, who have seen him perform live, thought of his guitar playing ? I did see him once myself, in a concert sometime in the late 1960s, in a little known venue in Cork city, Ireland. He had arrived here more or less incognito, so low a profile did he adopt. Apart from one brief TV appearance on our LATE, LATE SHOW, with a not too genned -up Gaye Byrne, as the host, I don't remember that he played much at any other venue. On the show and indeed in that concert where I saw him on stage, he did not show any great ability on the small guitar that he used. What, I wonder, was the true extent of his musicianship ?
I had an album (vinyl) on which he sang "Irish traditional songs" and on which there were some lovely little riffs between verses. Were they all his own work, I would love to know ?