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...not just to the sound of her voice, but to the way she handled the song. I've stayed impressed ever since. From The Sun's Coming Over the Hill, her fine award-winning song to her recent traditional album, Fairest Floo'er, I've listened and marvelled at Karine's ability as writer, singer and musician. She is a true original.

Karine Polwart writes:

I'm chuffed to find that the vivid vernacular poetry and fag soaked vocals of Dundonian songwriter Ìýmakes it onto the Mike Harding playlist this week.Ìý Michael inhabits an idiosyncratic musical world in which tortured Mexican artist Frida Kahlo visits his local Taybridge bar for a pint and some counselling from the regulars and a terrified fox relives the moment it ran onto the pitch at Hampden during the Scottish Cup Final.

An exceptional wordsmith and pianist, somewhere in the nether region between Randy Newman, Tom WaitsÌýand Ivor CutlerÌýhis witty, poignant, and elegiac songs have the city of Dundee in their bones.Ìý And it's for the richness in a sense of place and native turn of phrase that Michael jacked in a career as a songwriter for an international publisher that demanded songs for global audiences. Whilst he speaks to fewer folk now, he speaks to and for his own folk.Ìý And loads of them love him for it.

Last month, I helped to host an event called , a celebration of new songwriting in Scots and Celtic languages, which culminates in the European minority language final in Sweden.Ìý None of the writers of Gaelic punk, Welsh indie-rock or Breton folk-pop that I heard that night had an eye on a global market.Ìý But their commitment to making vibrant new music in their own tongues was immensely cheering.

So whilst the whole world, and even swathes of Britain, might never hear or fail to understand the subtleties of Michael Marra, I reckon the whole world needs mair fowk like him.

Karine x

Karine PolwartÌýis one of the artists playing this year's Cambridge Folk FestivalÌý

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