"Woody Guthrie's guitar killed fascists and crime, but in Hastings, West Sussex, South of England, my guitar killed time," so sang John Wesley Harding in 1993 when he recorded his Talking Return Of The Great Folk Scare Blues for KPFA in Berkley in front of a sniggering T-Bone Burnett, Richard Thompson and Chuck Prophet. Harding, named after a Bob Dylan song, included the track on his excellent Dynablob (a Dylan anagram) which featured a parody Bob sleeve finally acknowledging everyone who said, "Hey, you sound a little like Dylan." He'd have liked it better if it had been the original dustbowl folkie.

Today would have been the birthday of Guthrie, however he would have been a staggering 96 years old. His influence and inspiration has been duly passed down through Dylan, Harding, Billy Bragg, Wilco, Donovan, Springsteen, Tim Hardin, Pete Seeger and a whole host of new acts.

Mystically, as happens in the Church Of Dave, this morning's post brought the debut album by the fantastic Pete Greenwood, no slouch on a syncopated guitar melody and a lyrical master who weaves tales of looking for a decent pair of shoes, Charlie Manson and various lost opportunities into the excellent Sirens album which is released soon. The helpful sticker on the back reveals the thoughts of Pete: "Like Broadside ballads, you're just trying to tell a story," he chimes. And, like Guthrie's great input into the Broadside song publishing culture of the late ‘50s you can hear strains of the dustbowl in Sirens.

This is a great time for minimal folk music, which seems to have taken residence in the UK. The Church Of Dave positively encourages late night imbibing and pontification of this kind. It loves Liz Green's esoteric Englishness and, indeed, the gorgeous earthiness of Rachel Unthank And Winterset (see below). Indeed, the Church positively raises a glass to its congregation of illegal shaky handed film-makers who continue to post clips of our patron saints online. If Woody were alive today, he'd be the stuff of a thousand camera phones and he'd probably be suing Bob Dylan too.