John Martyn 1948- 2009
FinsburyParkCarrots
Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
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FinsburyParkCarrots
Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VYCG5wZ9op8
Typo Man: "Thanks kidz, but remembir, stay in skool!"
They say every sin is deadly but I believe they may be wrong...I'm guilty of all seven and I don't feel too bad at all
sad news.
So sorry
Danny Baker did a beautiful radio tribute, last week. For the time being, it's archived here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0 ... 9_01_2009/
where do i start listening?!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=epmJRyggJR8
He inspired everyone, from Floyd to Zep through the Verve and Faithless and beyond. When he won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Lifetime Achievement award last year, Eric Clapton sent a message of goodwill saying that John was "so far ahead of everyone, it was almost inconceivable". At that award ceremony, John played his song May You Never (which Clapton covered), with John Paul Jones on mandolin.
He was one of the seminal folk guitar virtuosos to emerge from the late-sixties London folk circuit, though he very quickly outgrew folk. He was the first white artist to be signed to Island Records in 1967, and did two solo folk albums showcasing his brilliant playing before he teamed up with then-wife Beverley to record two albums with her. He moved to Woodstock for a while and lived next door to Hendrix. The two were friends. Moving back to Hampstead in London he mentored and became best friends with a young songwriter and Island labelmate called Nick Drake.
At the beginning of the seventies, John started a second, incredible solo career, releasing a string of albums that were perhaps the most successful fusion of folk and jazz. John was the first guitarist to take an acoustic guitar and stick it through echo and delay. Everyone from Robert Fripp to The Edge have dined out on what is essentially the John Martyn sound. During this time he began to explore the potential of his extraordinary voice, and made what many see as his definitive album, Solid Air (recorded in 1972 and released in 1973). The title track was for his friend Nick Drake.
John supported Pink Floyd, Zep and Clapton throughout the seventies: audiences would see an acoustic guitarist walk onstage, and wince, thinking they were going to get something introspective and twee, until he plugged into his echoplex machine and blew their heads off. Everyone in the music field who knew about John thought he would become a superstar, but after Solid Air was released, John immediately followed it up with an album called Inside Out (1973) which at times borders on free-form jazz.
More superlative albums followed: Sunday's Child (1974); Live at Leeds (1975, an album which will make you forget the other Live at Leeds
His post-1980 output is considerably more uneven, due to drug and alcohol addiction, the pressure to pay for ex-wives and kids through making more mainstream music, and the insensitivity of the music industry. Throughout the eighties cloying, tinny synths replaced stellar guitar; however, his voice kept on getting better.
The stage became his platform during this period, and, like a lot of jazz musicians, he wasn't afraid to go back to old material and rewrite it.
Since 2000, he was starting to find his mojo again with new material, as his 2004 studio album On The Cobbles demonstrates. His health was very poor though, largely as a result of his lifestyle. In 1982 he impaled himself drunk on some railings and punctured a lung; he cracked his head open swimming; his pancreas burst one time; he broke his neck when, driving on a dark night in Scotland, a cow came through his windshield; he had one leg amputated below the knee in 2003 ... the list goes on. In late 2007 he was seriously ill with double pneumonia, and though he rallied and toured again, it finally caught up with him last Thursday.
Now ... where to start?
Start with Solid Air:
http://www.last.fm/music/John+Martyn/Solid+Air
Then try an earlier album, Bless The Weather:
http://www.last.fm/music/John+Martyn/Bless+The+Weather
Then Sunday's Child, Live at Leeds, One World, Grace and Danger and On The Cobbles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1XTOAcnWJY