Few artists who started their careers in the 1960s can reasonably be expected to still be producing challenging music in the current millennium. Aggravating and endearing by turns, John Martyn is the exception that proves the rule.
Born Iain McGeachy in 1948, Martyn has been breaking the mould ever since Chris Blackwell made him the first white solo act on his then reggae-based Island label. Initially pigeonholed as a folk artist in similar vein to his good friend Nick Drake, Martyn burst out of the box by mixing eclectic and diverse musical elements with his voice and amplified acoustic guitar. His use of effects such as the Echoplex more usually heard with electric guitar has become his stock in trade.
As a youngster in the mid 1960s, he used to follow guitar players around, learning his trade. “I didn’t used to ask, I used to sit at the front and watch. The best way to learn is watch the fingers and try and remember them.” His role models were folk players like Davy Graham, “he was my hero and still is” – and Hamish Imlach, “a very underrated guitarist with a very strange style, a cross between flamenco and blues.” Mixing and matching sounds and styles was to become a John Martyn trademark over the decades that followed.
Martyn’s first two vocal-and-guitar efforts were followed by a similar number of duo productions with then-wife Beverley (1970’s ‘Stormbringer’ being a US-recorded collaboration with the Band) before he hit his solo stride with the classic trilogy ‘Bless The Weather’, ‘Solid Air’ and ‘Inside Out’ which spanned 1971-73. These have been lauded as classic ‘chillout’ albums, albeit recorded decades before the term was invented.
It’s been onwards and upwards from there, standouts including two independently released live albums ‘Live At Leeds’ (1975) and ‘Philentropy’ (1983). The covering of ‘May You Never’ by Eric Clapton on his 1977 ‘Slowhand’ album boosted both profile and royalties. But ‘Grace And Danger’, released three years later and voted seventh in the alltime ‘Top 10 Bedsitter Albums’ by the Guinness Encyclopaedia Of Popular Music, eloquently exposed the heartache of Martyn’s marriage break-up.
A temporary separation from Island yielded a couple of albums for Warner Brothers in ‘Glorious Fool’ and ‘Well Kept Secret’, the latter produced by Phil Collins. These moved away from the revolutionary combination of acoustic guitar and Echoplex that had become his trademark and took him into the realms of bitter-sweet balladeer.
Severing connections with Island for a second time in 1988, Martyn chose an independent path in all senses of the word. ‘The Apprentice’ and ‘Cooltide’ cemented his alliance with a new label, Permanent, though that name would turn out to be less than accurate.
His next new musical direction was revealed on 1994’s ‘And’, an alliance with Chicago hip-hop engineer Stefon Taylor that saw him incorporate cutting-edge sub-bass and kick-drum elements into his music. John was now a Go Discs labelmate of topselling acts like the Beautiful South and Paul Weller, and the omens looked good. But the company was subsumed within the PolyGram multi-national and when founder Andy McDonald started another venture, Independiente,John came too.
March 1998 brought the next offering, ‘Church With One Bell’, an album of other people’s songs given the distinctive Martyn treatment. With writers as prestigious as Bobby Charles, Portishead and the Rev Gary Davis on board, the results were as beguiling and idiosyncratic as fans had come to expect. The title came from an old building in John’s village which his record label promised he could have as payment for the album. Subsequent efforts have included ‘Glasgow Walker’ and ‘On The Cobbles’, the latter recorded in a difficult spell during which Martyn had the lower half of one leg amputated due to a burst cyst. He nevertheless continues to record and perform.
Dr John, Beth Orton and Paul Weller are among John’s many celebrity fans, as are Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour and the ubiquitous Phil Collins. Both the latter appear on this compilation of re-recorded classics, whose scope and breadth gives you some clues as to why he has stayed the course.
Now resident in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny “As usual, I fell in love with an Irish Colleen and had to go in pursuit, foolish romantic that I am!” – John Martyn continues to produce music as entertaining as it is influential. We’ll give him the last word. “I don’t regret anything I’ve done… and if it turns other people on that’s all the better, isn’t it?”
Mick St Michael
