MARTIN Carthy MBE is generally considered to be one of the most influential figures in British traditional music over the last 40 years, inspiring musicians as great as Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Richard Thompson.

He will be performing at the inaugural concert series of Forest Live, a new initiative supporting up and coming local talent as well as staging concerts of renowned artists.

Martin Carthy trailblazes musical partnerships and as well as collaborating with his award singing wife Norma Waterson and daughter Eliza, he is one of the members of the collective band The Imagined Village.

He continues to champion folk clubs and is happy to support Forest Live. As well as being a ballad singer he is also a superb acoustic and electric guitarist as well as being a great interpreter of newly composed material.

He was appointed an MBE in 1998 and named folk singer of the year at the BBC Radio 2 folk awards in 2002 and 2005.

You can see Martin Carthy perform on Sunday October 14 at 7pm at Fordingbridge Town Hall.

Later in the year multi-instrumentalist Phil Beer will take to the Forest Live stage (Sunday December 9). As one half of the folk duo Show of Hands Phil Beer is also a class act solo performer.

There will be a support act at each of these two events.

Forest Live is the brainchild of singer/songwriter Louise Jordan, who lives in Fordingbridge and she will be launching her latest album Florilegium at the launch party on Sunday September 8 at 7pm. Tickets are £5 for this show (£10 for Martin Carthy and £12 for Phil Beer) and are available by emailing boxoffice@azanialtd.com or from the website www.forestlive.co.uk .