It is without any hint of arrogance that Michael Chapman asks not to be called a folk artist. He prefers to describe himself only as “a singer who plays a lot of guitar and a guitarist who plays a lot of songs”, as one who assumes this impossibility of categorization in his most honest way. Already over 50 years on his way through the dust of the blues and the country, the rise of the ragga, the drone and more ways of constant exploration, it was even in the fertile circuit of British folk from the 60s to the 70s that he was initially welcomed after learning in the toil of jazz and skiffle, sharing a kind of physical and spiritual space with names like Roy Harper, Mike Cooper or Wizz Jones in a moment of creative boiling in which songwriting joined to a prodigious approach to the guitar.
The respect and love more than due to a legacy that still has much to reveal and continues to grow continuously nowadays with an admirable glow, with last year bringing us an album where it had opened all its fascination with American music – 50 – in the company of Steve Gunn and other pandilla of Paradise of Bachelors and ‘EB=MC2’ in collaboration with the Israeli Ehud Banai. Blessed presence on this stage of one of the greatest masters, in absolute debut in the country. One of those occasions when the term unmissable is really to take seriously.
