Hello, I'm Kirstie Young.

Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the Radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit bbc.co.uk-radio4.

My cast away this week is the folk musician Martin Carthy, a highly influential figure

in the world of traditional music.

Fifty years ago he was at the forefront of the English folk revival, inspiring not just

his fellow countrymen but Bob Dylan and Paul Simon too.

At his first gig he was paid ten Bob, all the lemon tea he could drink in a plate of spaghetti.

Now he's part of a folk dynasty.

His wife is the celebrated singer Norma Waterson and their daughter Eliza is as renowned for her fiddle playing as she is her voice.

Aged just six she would get up on stage with her parents and join in.

My cast away on the other hand was brought up in an atmosphere that encouraged him to rise above his station.

There was music in his Anglo Irish background but it wasn't encouraged and rarely if ever talked about.

He says in my opinion there is no such thing as bad music.

There may be bad players or bad singers but I don't like the idea of inferior music and on that basis Martin Carthy.

On the basis that there is no such thing as bad music it must have been terrifically difficult for a man who spent his life surrounded by music to narrow it down to just eight discs today.

How did you go about choosing?

Shut my eyes and stuck a pin in an imaginary list.

I just chose eight but I could have chosen a dozen times.

Now here's the thing. When you came in here today I mean music obviously has been a constant presence in your life since you were a teenager.

I thought you would have to walk through our studio doors holding a guitar in your head.

...