English folk music veteran Allan Taylor underlined the international appeal of traditional song at a near sell-out concert.

And the guitar maestro held his audience spellbound with a superb repetoire of his own work and other songs by folk legends like Scotsman Dick Gaughan.

Songs like Rubenstein Remembers -- about an old survivor of a German concentration camp -- and The Veteran, about a friend from Oregon scarred mentally and physically by his Vietnam experience, were a world away from the accepted woolly jumper, rural image of folk music.

And the modern-day travelling minstrel -- as popular, or even more so, in Europe and America than in his native England -- made the most of his own experience with self-penned songs which were personal without veering into the mawkish or sentimental.

Maybe Another Day -- a song written on a trip to Belgium with his son to see the now-green fields dotted with the white crosses of the World War I dead -- was a bittersweet tale of a stroll taken by the two through the red light district of Ghent, and of the women who work there.

That song was recorded by Greek singer Nana Mouskouri -- in both French and German.

Rubenstein Remembers -- not one of his own -- had a mittel European, Jewish/Yiddish, flavour which showcased Talyor's skill on guitar and the haunting melody brought wistful echoes of a culture consumed in the flames of Auschwitz and its like.

The Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and occasional lecturer also showed his talent at spinning a story with a tale of performing the song in the former East Germany when a drunken neo-Nazi turned up.

But Taylor related he lived to tell the tale after the youngster -- complete with Hitler moustache -- was sent home with a scolding by a bunch of German hausfraus.

And -- on Dick Gaughan's hymn to home, Land of the North Wind -- his guitar turned wild and ranting which resonated with the sound of the bagpipes.

His incredible versatility was again highlighted by his next song, The Boy Becomes The Man, about the poignant realisation that preparing his own son for manhood inevitably means losing him.

And the superb Let it Come, Let it Go was a walk down memory lane and to a time when the young man had rather more hormones than sense.

A beautiful counterpoint was Brighton Beach -- seen from the perspective of childhood in the 50s, through the counter-culture of the 50s, to the rampant consumerism of Thatcher's Britain in the 80s, with the unaccompanied guitar skillfully catching the pop music styles of the decades.

Taylor -- who has played Bermuda four times -- said he enjoyed the Island, largely because his music isn't pigeonholed the way it could be in Britain.

He added: "Here, they don't care if it's folk music or whatever -- I've always had a good time.'' And so did his enraptured audience. Taylor last visited Bermuda in 1993, again as a guest of the Bermuda Folk Club, which deserves credit for bringing class acts like him to the middle of the Atlantic. Hopefully, it won't be seven years before the Island gets a chance to listen to him again.

Raymond Hainey Guitar maestro: English folk legend Allan Taylor has played to enthusiastic Bermuda audiences before, courtesy of the Bermuda Folk Club.

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