The Three City Four

Established in 1965, the Three City Four functioned as a folk supergroup whose roster included Martin Carthy on guitar and Leon Rosselson handling vocals and guitar, alongside Marian MacKenzie on vocals and Ralph Trainer on guitar. The ensemble was assembled specifically to interpret contemporary material composed in a folk idiom by songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and Cyril Tawney, while Rosselson himself supplied the group’s original numbers. Its live shows and studio work carried a pronounced political edge, extending even to participation in the anti-nuclear campaigns of the early 1960s. At the peak of the British folk revival the quartet secured a contract with English Decca, later moving on to record for British CBS.