In reply to toad:
Very sad. Saw him with Martin Carthy - could it have been last year? - when he really wasn't either very well or very good, but it was good to see them still gigging together, with so much mutual respect and affection.
One of the best gigs I ever saw was him and Beryl Marriott - his mentor, apparently, and a brilliant pianist - in a pub in Coventry in the early 80s. . Just technically brilliant, joyful, enthusiastic musicality.