Lynn & Martin Craig performed many of these traditional songs as teenage folk-rockers in Liverpool, England in the 1960s. 'Greenwood Side' re-creates their one-take, live to tape, sugar-free sound from those heady times.

16 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Traditional Folk, WORLD: Celtic



Details:
Lynn and Martin Craig have been making music together for over 40 years. Like many musicians of their time they met as teenagers at an English art school in the 1960s, where they followed the trail from rock'n'roll, skiffle, blues and R&B back through Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly until they discovered their own musical heritage from the British Isles.

Moving to Liverpool in 1965, they soaked up the cosmopolitan culture of that seafaring town, meeting characters like Rod Murray (a kinetic artist who once shared a flat with John Lennon) the Liverpool Beat Poets Adrian Henri, Brian Patten and Roger McGough and many of the original Mersey Sound musicians. Martin learned recording by working on the equipment owned by Cavern Sound, attached to the famous cellar club in Matthew Street. He helped to service the Beatles' Vox amplifiers following their 'Shea Stadium' tour in the USA, before the band donated them to the Strawberry Field children's home in Woolton.

Lynn and Martin joined an early folk-rock band along with two Liverpudlians, Gordon and Harry, and gigged under the name 'The Bo-Weevils'. Although the British folk club 'boom' was getting under way then, they also played at places like British Legion clubs and at ruthless talent contests along the lines of 'American Idol' but with jugglers, strong-arm acts and ventriloquists as well as singers!

'Greenwood Side', recorded at the beginning of 2007, is Lynn and Martin's 'labour of love' album. It captures the do-it-yourself spirit of those days, when whole albums were recorded in 48 hours over a couple of bottles of cheap wine and several cups of tea! Here are 16 mainly well-known traditional songs of the sort Lynn sang with the Bo-Weevils and which were heard around the folk clubs of the time; one-take, live to stereo recordings with no overdubs or harmful additives.