It may seem ungracious to highlight it, but one of this book’s most pertinent sentences about Carthy’s impact on folk music comes not via the author, but in radio personality Mark Radcliffe’s foreword: “She blazes the trail for young women to believe it’s OK to enter this world of long observed traditions and yet dance in high heels and dye your hair pink.”
While it’s true that a singer like Billy Bragg helped build a bridge allowing younger generations of rock fans access to the riches of the form, Carthy more than anyone has effortlessly made folk music sexy and fun, far beyond the preserve of parents’ dusty old vinyl. It helps that Eliza’s own parents, Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, have long been at the forefront of folk’s more ambitious and inventive concerns, and Parkes charts a sturdy chronology of how her subject set about merging the old and the new.
What the author clearly understands is that folk was never an insular or exclusive club, and, through interviews with such diverse fans and collaborators as Cerys Matthews, Van Dyke Parks and comedian Stewart Lee, illustrates the reach of Carthy’s work and the adulation she attracts. The musician herself comes across as driven, witty, smart as a whip and boundlessly creative, and it’s hard to imagine the music having a more engaging ambassador.
