HE was the gravelly-voice crooner and staunch republican who became one of Scotland's greatest folk singers.

Yet there is no memorial near the home of the man, who died over 40 years ago, and is still having an influence on modern day music.

All that will change this Saturday when a plaque in memory of Matt McGinn will finally be unveiled in Ross Street, Calton, a stone's thrown from where he was born, the eighth child of a family of nine, in 1928.

The memorial will be celebrated two days after what would have been his 91st birthday, had he not died of smoke inhalation in a tragic fire at his home on January 5, 1977, 12 days short of his 49th birthday.

He was sober when he fell asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand, which caused the fire.

At the non-religious funeral was Billy Connolly, who was one of McGinn's early backing musicians, and a host of Scotland’s best folk musicians and political leaders such as Harry McShane, last of the Red Clydesiders, and shipyard hero and former Glasgow University rector Jimmy Reid. 

The memorial comes after fan James Scott set up a campaign to raise £1000 to pay for a tribute to the republican who left a legacy of some 500 songs, many of which are still performed today.

Mr Scott, whose favourite McGinn song is Benny Lynch, the tribute to the legendary Scottish boxer said: "I did this because I am a great McGinn fan and I think he has just been totally ignored. It's a great shame.

"He wrote all those great songs and he is in the Robert Burns category as far as I am concerned. "Only Burns as regards Scotland has written so many songs and poems. We raised the money for the tribute very easily."

Following the unveiling there will be a free remembrance Hootenanny at The Olde Burnt Barnes in the Gallowgate where singers such as Frank Boyd and Donald Anderson will sing some of McGinn's songs and recite some of his poetry.

While there is a statue to McGinn in the foyer of the People's Palace on Glasgow Green, fans have been determined to ensure there is something to remember the man believed to have influenced a young Bob Dylan much closer to the singer's home.

The Scottish Traditional Music Hall Of Fame, of which McGinn is an inductee describe him as "one of the most important singer-songwriters of the folk revival in Scotland during the 1960s and 1970s A singer, socialist, songwriter, moralist, humorist as well as a communist, atheist and self-taught poltiical revolutionary, McGinn was a folkie who never learned to play a folk instrument.

His traditionally based songs cover political subjects such as Lots of Little Soldiers, humorous subjects like The Dundee Ghost or best of all, humorous political songs like The Pill.

His influence was more recently felt in the French trip hop market.

He inspired Marseille-based ensemble Chinese Man to cover one of his tracks, Get On, Get Up, back in 2011.

The track appeared on the band’s album Racing With The Sun, but its name was shortened to just Get Up and the link to Matt was lost, with the song’s subsequent video going on to garner an incredible 15 million views on YouTube.

But last year the track got a new lease of life when French telecommunications giant Iliad used the chorus of the Chinese Man’s cover version in an expensive advertising campaign.

Born in Calton, Glasgow, he spent time in an approved school before getting a job in a Hillington factory. But, thanks to a trade union scholarship, he was later able to attend Ruskin College in Oxford and returned to Glasgow to work as a teacher.

The turning point in his musical career came when he won a newspaper competition in the Reynolds News in 1961 with the scabrous verses of The Foreman O’Rourke, about a worker who flushes his boss down a toilet pan.

His best known songs included The Red YoYo, The Rolling Hills of the Borders, Skinny Malinky Longlegs, The Ballad of the Q4, and the moving The Ibrox Disaster.

They ranged from ditties for children, to the daftness of The Big Effan Bee - a bee in the fictional town of Effan. But many other songs hit home on the plight of the working classes. His Three Nights And A Sunday (Double Time) was an attack on smug workers who grabbed all the overtime going at the expense of other workers’ jobs.

American protest singer Pete Seeger championed McGinn's music in the United States and arranged for him to take part in a concert at the aforementioned Carnegie Hall, where the Scot met a young Bob Dylan.

He also entertained audiences with his stories and jokes, which was a style later adopted and polished by Billy Connolly.