Before Bob Dylan became one of the most influential figures in music history, he was a 21-year-old newcomer exploring London’s folk scene. Among the first to befriend him there was Martin Carthy, the British folk singer who would go on to introduce Dylan to traditional songs like “Scarborough Fair.”
In a new interview with The Times, the 84-year-old musician looks back on those early days and the night Dylan performed publicly in the U.K. for the first time — a performance that didn’t land the way anyone expected.
“I met Dylan in 1962,” Carthy says. “He was here to do a television play called Madhouse on Castle Street and came to a folk club in the King and Queen pub in Fitzrovia where I was playing. It was exciting because he had been presented on the cover of Sing Out! magazine as the man to continue the work of Woody Guthrie, so I went up to him and said: ‘You’re Bob Dylan. Fancy doing a couple of songs?’ He replied: ‘Ask me later.’”
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When Carthy asked again later that evening, Dylan stood up with his guitar and harmonica and performed “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” marking his first show outside North America. The two quickly became friends and spent the next few days exploring London’s clubs together. They played at the Troubadour in Earls Court and the Singers’ Club in King’s Cross, but Dylan didn’t impress the audiences there.
“Bob Dylan was bloody good, serious about what he was doing, but at the Singers’ Club he disappointed a lot of people,” Carthy remembers. “They didn’t like upstarts. It was the beginning of an exciting time.”
During that visit, Carthy also played for Dylan the song “Scarborough Fair,” a centuries-old English ballad that would inspire the melody for Dylan’s own “Girl from the North Country.”
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That friendship left an enduring mark on both artists — Dylan went on to redefine the boundaries of folk music, and Carthy continued performing and preserving traditional songs for more than six decades. Looking back, he recognizes that moment in 1962 as the spark that helped carry Britain’s folk revival across the Atlantic.
Now, at 84, Carthy has come full circle. His new album, Transform Me Then into a Fish, reimagines traditional ballads like “Scarborough Fair” and “Lovely Joan,” and has earned him a Mercury Prize nomination — making him the oldest artist ever shortlisted. The record, he said, is a way of keeping those timeless songs alive for a new generation: “These songs need singing.”
The 2025 Mercury Prize winner will be announced on October 16. It is awarded every year to recognize the best album from a British or Irish artist.
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