This documentary focuses on Eliza Carthy, a singer-songwriter who is bringing traditional music to a new audience. She is the daughter of legendary folk musicians Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson. Her father was awarded an MBE for services to folk music in 1998, which actually seems quite a niggardly gesture when one considers how important a figure he actually is. He was inspirational to such musicians as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and to later musicians such as Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and the Albion Country Band (the last two bands that included him as a member for a time).

by Gonzo Music TV

Her mother is also deserving of that much overused expression ‘Living Legend.’ She was a founder member of The Watersons, one of Britain’s premier traditional folk-singing outfits, together with her brother Mike and her sister Lal. She has been singing ever since and whilst I prefer to eschew Americanisms when discussing something so quintessentially British, if there was a “First Lady” of British Folk music, she would undoubtedly be it.

Unsurprisingly Eliza (who was born in 1975) spent her younger years playing music and recording with various members of her über-talented family. As she got older she began instigating more and more projects herself, and over the years has become one of the most important British artists of modern times. Early on her music began to transcend the rigid confines of British traditional music, and as she grew and developed as an artist, she began to assimilate more and more seemingly incongruent influences into her music, until her art became a multicultural synergy of sources that really defies categorisation. It seems that Eliza has given up trying to categorise herself, and just describes herself simply as a ‘Modern British Musician’, which says it all really.

Source: http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/