Martin Carthy was born in Hatfield on May 21, 1941. He grew up in Hampstead, North London. After he left school he had a number of jobs. He worked behind the scenes at the open air theatre at Regent's Park as a prompter (helping actors who forgot their words). He later worked as an assistant stage manager (ASM) on a tour of "The Merry Widow". He then worked at Theatre in the Round in Scarborough. He then sang in coffee bars. He became a resident (regular act) at The Troubadour Folk Club in Earls Court in the early 1960s. He joined Redd Sullivan's "Thameside Four" in 1961. He is a famous solo performer of traditional songs. He has a very special individual style of guitar playing on his old Martin Guitar. He uses different ways of tuning his guitar. He has a strongly percussive (drum like) picking style that brings out the melody. His first album, "Martin Carthy", was released in 1965. It had Dave Swarbrick playing fiddle playing on some songs, although he was not named on the album cover. Carthy's way of playing the traditional song Scarborough Fair was used by Paul Simon on the Simon and Garfunkel album Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme in 1966. Simon did not admit that he had used Carthy's version.