The fine line....
Where do you draw the fine line between eccentricity and madness?

A friend of mine used to host a damn fine acoustic session in North London. In between the featured bands would be an open-mic slot where usually quite good acts would do a couple of numbers. One afternoon, he was setting up the gear, when onto the pub shambled a medaeval troubadour.
Yes, resplendent in manky Lincoln Green doublet and hose and carrying a sword and a guitar case, Edward the Troubadour had arrived.

Naturally, his repertoire was kind of stuck in the 1500's, but there was far more to him than that. Apparently he had recorded as Teddy Paige for the legendary Sun Records label in the late '50's (home of Elvis, Jerry Lee, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash)and had been a record producer in Memphis until an unspecified incident in the early '70's forced him to leave. Rumours floated around Memphis that he had died in the Jonestown suicide, but the truth was even more strange. He had decided that he wanted to live the life of a travelling musician from the 14th century, and took off for Europe.

However, times had moved on and poor Ed found himself an outlaw, with his sword constantly being confiscated by the Sheriff of Nottingham's dastardly henchmen (the police)

Ed was clearly a very strange man, but fairly harmless (so we thought.) People were always willing to hear him twang his way through 'Greensleeves' and a band was put together so he could blast some Rock and Roll again.

Then this

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/3020266.stm


Poor old Ed is now in a high-security psychiatric hospital with, as he put it, "all the fruitcakes."
(Pickettywitchfinder General, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 12:12, 2 replies)

Moolah
Where do you draw the fine line between eccentricity and madness?

I think its determined by how much money the mentalist has.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 12:21, closed)

There's a nice tribute to that guy..
..in the book "Guitar man" by Will Hodgkinson. Apparently Ed would only eat meat.. nothing else.
(lost, Mon 3 Nov 2008, 13:00, closed)