Never meet your heroes is quite accurate, actually,” says the woman sitting opposite me. “Unfortunately, all our heroes are bastards.” Oh dear. It’s pretty ironic that contemporary folk artist Billie Marten is saying this to me, of all people. She’s one of my heroes, but if she is a bastard, she’s hiding it incredibly well thus far.
Truth be told, this isn’t our first meeting. A few years ago, I found myself chatting with a slight young woman at a friend’s party and idly asked what she did for a living. “I make music,” came the reply. Something stirred in my memory at that moment, and I peered more closely at the ethereal face before me: blue-green eyes like wave-softened chips of palest sea glass; creamy skin flanked by curtains of flaxen hair. I remembered with a jolt that she’d introduced herself as “Billie”.
