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Although he's best known for his classic folk song staple "Streets of London," which first appeared on his Spiral Staircase album in 1969, Ralph McTell is a multi-dimensional guitarist and singer/songwriter who's influenced hundreds of folk singers in Great Britain, Europe and around the U.S. Fortunately, people in the U.S. and around Europe are beginning to connect to his vast body of excellent original work, and not just "Streets," which has been recorded more than 200 times by artists as diverse as Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, and even the angry punk group Anti-Nowhere League, and is still McTell's most requested song. McTell was raised in post-WWII London with his mother and a younger brother as Ralph May. His father left home when he was two. He began to show musical talent when he was seven, when he began playing harmonica. When skiffle bands became all the rage in England, Scotland and Ireland, McTell began playing ukulele and formed his first band. Later in his teens, he began playing guitar. At the College Jazz Club in London, McTell first heard Ramblin' Jack Elliott sing Jesse Fuller's "San Francisco Bay Blues." Elliott's performance proved to be a revelatory experience for the shy, young, impressionable McTell. He took his earliest cues from the great blues and folk singers: Elliott, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell. He took his adopted last name from blues singer McTell, and his songwriting inspiration from the writings of Jack Kerouac and John Steinbeck. After a few years hanging around London, he took off to travel along the south coast of England and the rest of Europe, where he made his way around hitchhiking and busking. While busking around Europe, he met his wife Nanna; shortly thereafter, they had a son. McTell tried a conventional career as a teacher, but continued playing the folk clubs around London.His first album, Eight Frames a Second, was released on the Transatlantic label in 1968. With a gentle voice, superb guitar playing skills gleaned from his days as a ukulele player, and a level of modesty that showed through on stage, McTell began incorporating his own songs into his live shows, which were mostly blues in those days. By July 1969, McTell was booked at the Cambridge Folk Festival and in December of that year was headlining his first major London concert at Hornsey Town Hall. By May 1970, McTell completely sold out the Royal Festival Hall and was booked to play the Isle of Wight Festival alongside Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan. He made his first U.S. tour in 1972 and returned to London to sell out the Royal Albert Hall in 1974, the first British solo act to accomplish such a feat in 14 years. The third song he ever wrote, "Streets of London," was something he deliberately left off his debut album, but at a producer's insistence, he included it on his second album for Transatlantic, Spiral Staircase. After the song was re-recorded in 1974 as a single for Reprise/Warner Bros. it became a huge worldwide hit. The song reached number two on the British charts, and in Germany there were four different versions of the song on the charts at one point, three by McTell and one by a German singer. The pressures of worldwide success temporarily became too much for the shy, reserved McTell, and in the spring of 1975, he announced his intention to quit touring and withdraw from the music business for a while. He came to the U.S., where he relaxed and wrote songs in relative anonymity for a year before going back to the U.K. to play a Christmas benefit concert in Belfast. He continued recording for Warner Bros. in the 1970s, releasing Right Side Up in 1976, Ralph, Albert and Sydney in 1977 and Slide Away the Screen in 1979. For most of the 1980s, he spent his time touring and working on a children's television show called Alphabet Zoo, which led the TV network to create a show especially for him, Tickle on the Tum, and both programs introduced McTell to new generations of fans. In 1995 and 1996, McTell returned to the U.S. and performed a series of sold-out shows on the East Coast, and his visibility in the U.S. may have been helped along by Nanci Griffith's decision to record one of his songs, "From Clare to Here," on her Grammy winning Other Voices, Other Rooms album. McTell's discography is very extensive and demonstrates his commitment to his craft as a songwriter. Though many of these albums are hard to locate, they're well worth seeking out, most originally recorded for Transatlantic, Reprise/Warner Brothers, or Mays. In 1992, he recorded an ambitious project about the life and times of poet Dylan Thomas, The Boy With a Note, released on Leola Music; recently, the U.S. has seen the Stateside release of From Clare to Here (1996, a U.S. release of Silver Celebration) and Sand In Your Shoes (1998). Blue Skies Black Heroes appeared the following year. Ralph's two sell-out concerts in London's Purcell Room were recorded and released on Leola as a two-CD set. Entitled Travelling Man, the double album came out in time for Ralph's 1999 spring tour. A two-page feature about Ralph appeared in The Guardian newspaper in May 1999. Ralph had been busy writing during the previous couple of years and the result was Red Sky. Recorded at Woodworm and released in 2000 on the Leola label, the album contained 19 tracks. Ralph's output was not restricted to songs, however. He had been working on an autobiography for some years and the first volume, entitled Angel Laughter, was published by Heartland Publishing in 2000. To promote Angel Laughter, Ralph undertook a tour of bookshops and libraries . Ralph and Nanna's first grandchild, Ezra, was born on 25 June 2000. In 2001, Ralph undertook a special tour of the UK. Billed as 'The National Tour', it gave Ralph a chance to present concerts featuring his newly-acquired National Steel resonator guitar. Two live recordings from the National Tour made their way onto the 2002 Leola album National Treasure. Heartland published "Summer Lightning", the second volume of Ralph's autobiography in 2002. Another highlight of the year was the Lifetime Achievement award for songwriting presented to Ralph at the annual BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. By then, Ralph had written and recorded well over 200 songs. Ralph had been touring extensively at home and abroad for many years so in 2003 he decided to take a break from the road. He split the year between his London and Cornwall homes and spent the time writing, travelling and enjoying his grandchildren - by the end of the year there were seven of them. In 2004, Ralph co-headlined on Steeleye Span's tour of Australia and New Zealand as well as touring in the UK, Ireland and continental Europe. Ralph appeared at the fortieth Cambridge Folk Festival and his performance was broadcast on BBC4 television. He also played at the fiftieth Sidmouth Festival and at Cropredy Festival, both of which events faced an uncertain future. In 2006 Ralph's "Walk Into The Morning" tour was a sellout success, creating such long queues to talk to him at his customary "meet and greet" sessions after concerts, that he was forced to announce in June 2006 that he would no longer be doing this. A country blues "Up Close" tour for September 2006 sold out. Called: "Dylan, Guthrie and The Blues" Ralph's set comprised the songs on his latest CD, "Gates of Eden" released on 7 September.
