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Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days of the folk revival.

He was born in Hatfield on 21 May 1941 and grew up in Hampstead, North London. After leaving school, he worked behind the scenes at the open air theatre at Regent's Park as a prompter, then an assistant stage manager (ASM) on a tour of The Merry Widow, and then at Theatre in the Round in Scarborough. He then sang in coffee bars. He became a resident at The Troubadour folk club in Earls Court in the early 1960s. He joined Redd Sullivan's Thameside Four in 1961. He is a renowned solo performer of traditional songs in a very distinctive style, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar; his style is marked by the use of alternative tunings, and a strongly percussive picking style that emphasizes the melody. His debut album, Martin Carthy, was released in 1965, and also featured Dave Swarbrick playing fiddle on some tracks, although he was not mentioned in the album's sleeve notes. Carthy's arrangement of the traditional ballad Scarborough Fair was adapted, without acknowledgment, by Paul Simon on the Simon and Garfunkel album recording Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme in 1966.

He has also been involved with many musical collaborations. He has sung with The Watersons since 1972, was twice a member of the UK electric folk group Steeleye Span, was a member of the Albion Country Band 1973 line-up, with members from the Fairport Convention family and John Kirkpatrick, that recorded the 'Battle of the Field' album, and was part of the innovative Brass Monkey ensemble, which mixed a range of brass instruments with Carthy's guitar and mandolin and John Kirkpatrick's accordion, melodeon and concertina.

For many years Carthy has enjoyed a creative partnership with fiddle player Dave Swarbrick and, more recently, Waterson:Carthy has provided the forum for a successful musical partnership with wife Norma Waterson together with their daughter Eliza Carthy.

In June 1998 he was appointed an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours. He was named Folk Singer of the Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2002, and again in 2005 when he also won the award for Best Traditional Track for 'Famous Flower of Serving Men'. In the 2007 Folk Awards Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick won "Best duo".

Martin Carthy cut this solo album in 1971, immediately after he exited Steeleye Span following two albums with them, Please to See the King and Ten Man Map. The material is very spare, featuring Carthy and his guitar alone (except on "Betsy Bell and Mary Gray," and where Steeleye Span alumnus Maddy Prior appears on vocals), or his voice alone, and his approach is very studied and deliberative here, as though reveling in the fact of singing and playing alone for the first time in several years. Some of the material is rather dark-hued in terms of story, most notably "The Banks of Green Willow" (a song best known in its classical adaptations by various composers), "Lord Randall," and "He Called for a Candle," and "Famous Flower of Serving Men," all very grim stories — even "Outlandish Knight," in which the would-be female victim of the title character turns the tables, is pretty dark.

Only "John Blunt" features any pronounced humor, and it might normally be hard to recommend a record like this as a potential first choice, except that "Famous Flower" is a high point of Carthy's career, one of the most powerful performances he's ever given on record; "Lord Randall" might be the best version ever recorded of that song; and Carthy's voice is astonishingly powerful, flexible, and rich-hued throughout. The lack of accompaniment is scarcely to be noticed on "Handsome Polly-O," in which Carthy's a cappella vocal seems to have undertones of its own accompaniment (one can almost hear the resonances of pipes and a fiddle). Surprisingly, his guitar is very restrained here, placed somewhat further down in the mix than is usual on his albums. Overall, the album is a good companion to the decidedly more upbeat Crown of Horn, recorded soon after.

01."I Was a Young Man" – 2:46
02."Banks of Green Willow" – 4:31
03."Handsome Polly-O" – 2:31
04."Outlandish Knight" – 5:25
05."He Called for a Candle" – 2:49
06."John Blunt" – 3:25
07."Lord Randall" – 4:34
08."William Taylor" – 3:42
09."Famous Flower of Serving Men" – 9:23
10."Betsy Bell and Mary Gray" – 1:33