Ralph McTell. Streets of London. There's no avoiding it. Hear one and you immediately think of the other. The singer and the irresistible, infuriatingly catchy but plaintive song, connected forever like Andy Warhol and Campbell's soup.
Except that McTell never did anything else. Did he? Well, no, not if you discount 31 years in the music business, a shopping-trolley load of albums, enough world tours to keep a small airline in business and a slot at the same, fabled 1970 Isle of Wight festival which featured The Who and Jimi Hendrix.
So McTell, being such a big noise, and coming here as a celebrated guest of the Hong Kong Folk Society, prior to a tour of Australia, can usually be found calling the tune in a Los Angeles or Paris recording studio? Think again. Not for McTell the stresses of cosmic stardom and the attractions of substance abuse. He spoke to me from his home in St Austell, Cornwall, in one of Britain's extremities, where rural Ralph was trying hard to blend in . . .
'I don't go out much, just hang around the house, dig the garden, and think: 'Yeah, this is all right, this will do for a bit.' I'm careful in pretending to be a rural type, with my shears and brown bread, but I always overdo it - the real country folk have electric strimmers and eat sliced white loaves. I'm a townie and always will be; there's no escaping it.' London town, in fact, has shaped McTell for most of his life. Ralph May was three when he abruptly left Farnborough, Kent, for Croydon with his mother and brother in the traumatic years after World War II.
'We were dumped, me and my brother,' he said. 'My father left. I think that happened a lot after the war. It made me sensitive to certain things, perhaps over-sensitive. But I didn't miss him; I heard later that he was killed in an accident, that's all I know.' Growing up, the young Ralph began playing harmonica, then the ukelele, before taking up the guitar and busking across Europe - having changed his name to McTell after bluesman Blind Willie.
But his background prompted another defining, if unlikely, influence. Hard-bitten, tie-dyed 'folkies' aren't supposed to be passionate about soccer, but McTell fondly imagines his fortunes running parallel to those of Fulham Football Club.
'I think it was a reaction to growing up without a dad,' he said. 'I never wanted to play the game, but I enjoy being a dad myself, so over the past 25 years I've been going to matches; I would take my [three] sons, too - which is why they all now play rugby and ice hockey! It would be: 'Dad, why can't they win, just once?' I dragged them along as Fulham slipped down the divisions . . .' Both Fulham FC and McTell are now under new management, McTell dropping his a few years ago and introducing a new working regime.