There's a good deal of information about Steve Benbow in 'Dazzling Stranger, 'Colin Harper's excellent new biography of Bert Jansch. (In fact the early part of Harper's book gives a very informative history of the British folk scene of the late '50s and early '60s, with perceptive pen-portraits of most of the major local figures. It also mentions several influential visitors from across the pond, like Peggy Seeger, Jack Elliot, Derrol Adams, Paul Simon, Jackson C Frank ... and that scruffy little fellow who got so indignant when he had to pay to get into the Troubadour, but in the end did quite a decent floor-spot ... Bobby something or other ...)

Bert, Davy Graham, and other virtuosi of that era always spoke very highly of Steve Benbow as a guitarist. He was certainly the first person I ever heard do claw-hammer picking (and one of the best at it). He knew his way around the jazz repertoire too - I remember him reducing the Troubadour to awestruck silence with a stunning version of Django's classic 'Nuages'. Harper's explanation for Steve's decline in popularity seems plausible enough. Allegedly, he tried hard to break into the larger, and more lucrative, middle-of-the-road, easy-listening market - and in the process, he watered down his repertoire so much that he lost credibility with the hard-core folkies. And so, when the easy listening records stopped selling, there was no road back into the folk scene for him. Hence (perhaps) the alternative career as a taxi-driver.

But if Steve is still around, someone should be recording him - even if his playing days are past, his reminiscences should be worth preserving.

Wassail!