MINNESOTA, where you find me this week, as my tour of America and Canada continues, has a major claim to fame as far as folk music is concerned. It is of course the birth-place of Bob Dylan, one of the most controversial and divisive figures in music history, but undoubtedly a major influence on many people, myself included. Tonight my companion James Keelaghan and I have a concert here, in the fine city of St Paul. Mr Dylan himself, meanwhile, is on his way to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he has a show of his own to do tomorrow. He also has a new album out soon, a box set of six CDs dedicated to his 1974 release, “Blood on the Tracks”, much of which, by coincidence, was recorded right here in St Paul, exactly forty-four years ago. James and I might just burst spontaneously into a version of Bob’s ditty “Tangled Up In Blue” in homage to the great man at tonight’s gig. Back home this week, there’s plenty to get tangled up in too, starting tonight at The Beamish Mary in No Place near Stanley, where Anglo-American duo Cathryn Craig and Brian Willoughby are the guest artists. My Bad Pennies cohort Andy May and his trio have a series of local gigs this week, at The Hearth Arts Centre in Horsely tomorrow, at St James and St Basil’s Church in Fenham on Saturday, and at Embleton Creighton Hall in Alnwick on Tuesday. Acclaimed singer Rosie Hood is special guest at all of these shows. At South Shields Customs House on Sunday, you can hear Mary Humphries and Anahata with a fine selection of traditional folk songs and tunes, and there’s a special night in tribute to the late Bert Draycott, irrepressible raconteur and undisputed world spoons-playing champion, at Darlington’s Britannia on Tuesday