His continuous touring of the world as a beat mystic traveller, picking up and then recording different styles of music for the guitar, has resulted in many musicians crediting him with founding world music. However, though Graham recorded in a variety of genres and loved to play the oud, he was no purist, absorbing all his influences into his own ever-expanding conception of the possibilities of guitar music. Quizzed, for instance, on his introduction of a chord progression into an Arabic maqam, his amiable retort was to the effect that, if he felt like it and it sounded alright, why shouldn't he?