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Bound” days. There are whole chat rooms debating which grim northern station his song is based on. Interviewed in 1990 (14) Simon said he wrote it at Liverpool. But that didn’t stop them putting up a plaque at Widnes.
Anybody from Crewe just knows it had to be Crewe station.
    Bert Jansch also appeared at The Brunswick – I really enjoyed his songs, though I was more impressed by John Renbourn as a player. I performed with both of them and with Davey Graham. Jansch’s first album, released in 1965, sold 150,000 copies. He later went on to form Pentangle with Renbourn, Jacqui McShee, Danny Thompson and Terry Cox, performing an eclectic programme of music referred to as “folk baroque”, each musician bringing their own influence: traditional, jazz, early music, blues and contemporary. Davey Graham was also an eclectic musician who incorporated folk, jazz, blues, Eastern European and North African music into his work. He was far ahead of his time; the early Sixties albums now acknowledged as folk-blues classics were described in the recent Guardian (15) obituary as “delayed time-bombs; their initial impact may not have been enormous but the long-term effect was remarkable”. The band I formed in the early Seventies drew music from many influences and was part of this vibrant, influential and transformative movement.
    Wizz Jones also played at The Brunswick and Brian Golby – with whom Wizz went on to specialise in country music – was another performer from those days. Wizz was a great blues lover at the top of his profession, influenced by Broonzy, Alexis Corner, Davey Graham and Ewan MacColl, and influencing Clapton and Renbourn in their early days. As was customary, he had done the European busk and had travelled to North Africa. He stayed with me a couple of times at the house in Wistaston Avenue where I lived with my father. I first met Wizz Jones at a gig in Stoke and the second time I met him I played with him, also in Stoke. I found some notes pertaining to a performance by (probably) Wizz Jones at (probably) the Stoke Guitar Club. I had written down how to play the different parts whilst closely watching and listening. There was no other way of finding out.
    It’s reminiscent of me getting the early bus to school so I could talk to Keith Haines – no longer at school and a skilled musician – about playing chords. Keith played with a successful band: Gary B. Goode and the Hot Rods on the same bill as The Beatles. He graduated from skiffle to rock ‘n’ roll and eventually to jazz.
Bands
    As well as solo performances, I was supporting some quite high profile bands such as Trader Horne, The Incredible String Band and Pentangle. Other performers included Dave Swarbrick: a virtuoso fiddle player who was to become a member of Fairport Convention, Son House and Peter Green from the early incarnation of Fleetwood Mac. This was a time when folk became folk rock and I’d be helping with lists of performers for gigs. I always put myself down to support; it was cheap and easy. I needed no equipment to move onto stage – just me and two microphones. In an electric band everyone needs an amplifier. I wasn’t competing with these bands because I’m doing blues and they’re doing folk rock. There’s also variety for the audience. Sometimes I’d do an extra solo slot in a room off – there were lots of different rooms in the university buildings and many possibilities after the bands had finished. I was also playing with Stefan Grossman at Manchester University, at Keele and other big folk clubs as a support act during the late Sixties and early Seventies. He had a thorough grounding in the country blues, having studied with the Reverend Gary Davis for eight years and then with Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Skip James and Fred McDowell. Stefan Grossman and I both did solo acoustic blues. He was technically much better, certainly in the Sixties; I’d caught up a bit by the Seventies.
    Martin Carthy was