u/Jon_Wilks

A photo from the Second Cousins stage at FolkEast Festival last year.

From left to right in that photo: Andy Matheou's Yamaha (Andy ran Les Cousins Folk & Blues Club, and John Martyn borrowed that guitar from him to make the Bless the Weather album), Bert Jansch's touring Yamaha that he used in the last decade of his life, Sandy Denny's Taytay (she acquired it from her brother when she was a teenager and she wrote 'The Ballad of Time' on it, which became her classic, 'Who Knows Where the Time Goes'), and Nick Drake's Martin 000-28 (used on some of the recordings at his last ever session, as anyone who has read Adam Foster's excellent book will know).

This year at FolkEast (this coming Saturday) we'll have: Nick's 000-28 and his Estruch (nylon-string, the first guitar Nick ever owned), Sandy's Taytay, Martin Carthy's original Gibson (on which he taught songs to Bob Dylan in 1962/63), and Martin Carthy's 000-18 (his main guitar from about 1964 until 2000).

It'll be a guitar heaven! More info here: https://www.patreon.com/JonWilksArchive/posts/second-cousins-166555979

'Geordie' — the Martin Carthy arrangement, tweaked a bit. I played it most nights on the recent Songs of Martin Carthy tour. DADEAB, capo 2nd fret (Carthy played it in DADEAB with no capo on Crown of Horn).

I don't usually do straight covers — I tend to think that if you're playing someone else's arrangement you should bring something of your own, otherwise what's the point? But the guitar line and harmonies here are the whole reason people love this version, so there wasn't much room to mess with it. What changed instead was the swing — a lilt crept in over the tour that wasn't there when I started.

I've played it for Martin himself a few times now. One night he told me it was great. Another he said I should've left well alone 😂  He's also the one who keeps telling me to take an idea and run with it — so that's what this is. I've run with it, albeit not very far.

Keen to hear your thoughts on any of this. How do you feel about doing straight covers? More importantly, how do you feel about Martin Carthy?

I posted a song called Strung Out on the Line here the other day and several people asked for a fingerpicking tutorial. I'm not a great teacher, but I've given it a go and posted it to my Youtube channel. I hope you get something out of it!

I sat in the garden on a May morning and played this song, and the blackbirds joined in. At times they nearly drowned me out. I really didn't mind.

Strung Out on the Line is from my 2025 album Needless Alley, co-written with Ellie Gowers — sung here in CGCDGA, Martin Carthy's tuning, a tone below the album version. After we toured together, Martin mentioned that nobody was really taking his famously difficult tuning anywhere new. So I wrote a batch of songs in it. The words have shifted a little from the album recording too — songs suggest changes when you play them enough.

How-to-play version coming in a couple of days.