Michael Chapman

Michael Chapman

Admiral Bar, Glasgow

Rob Adams

"THE good thing about the list," says Michael Chapman, "is that I'm not on it - yet." No, we don't want Mr Chapman on the list. As a guitarist he's certainly up there with the listed Bert Jansch, Davy Graham and John Fahey. They, however, have departed and Chapman, at 73, is still demonstrating a guitar talent that's by turns creative, mesmerising and so steady that his right thumb could get a gig as a drummer in a dance band.

Chapman's songs may not go to the places that people who borrow them suggest - one deeply spiritual lyric, according to the cover version, turns out to have been inspired by duff plumbing - and Chapman's introductions have long since been part of his appeal anyway. Like his tale of the well-dressed woman of a certain age who approaches him in a Leeds bookshop and reminds him that they were married for four years, or his vouchsafing of an extant video showing the aforementioned Fahey trying to play guitar and doff his coat simultaneously.

Okay, that one preceded an instrumental, Fahey's Flag (don't ask), but his bottleneck guitar sang so descriptively that it didn't need Chapman's careworn voice to add further layers.

Just Another Story, about a woman living in a trailer park with a dead-end job and a dead-end life, painted a sympathetic portrait and, among a repertoire that stretched back to his second album (the classic Fully Qualified Survivor), Mallard, the most laid-back song ever about a train, was as magnificent as its inspiration and La Madrugada was a perfect combination of guitar craft and musical impressionism.