John and band performed on Stage One at 430pm on Saturday 21 June. Page 3 of the programme is a full page advertisement for Piece By Piece and a short introduction to John (reproduced below) is on page 15.
John Martyn
In his twenty years as a professional musician. John Martyn has never allowed his music to stand still, always seeking out new forms to embellish and refresh his style. From the introduction of jazz saxophone on his second album ‘The Tumbler’ (1969), he has been an innovator, never blindly following trends, but working on the maxim “To thine own self be true”.
Martyn married Beverley Kutner in 1969, and the pair went to Woodstock, where ‘Stormbringer’, featunng The Band’s Levon Helm on drums, was recorded. The following album ‘Road To Ruin’ saw the start of a partnership with Danny Thompson which ran the course of the decade, and the development of a more improvised, warmer sound. Recently Martyn commented that his changes between each record “haven’t been a conscious progression. People put it down to this great artistic urge to progress. but in fact its an urge to avoid boredom.”
Whatever the reasons, Martyn’s career took off with the release of ‘Bless The Weather’ and the indisputably great ‘Solid Air’ (1973). Slurred lyrics accentuated the emotions of the songs in the manner of early blues singers and the voice became another instrument. Although these albums are now part of his past, he doesn’t mind playing tracks from them on stage, looking on requests as a sign of approval that he finds flattering.
The experimental ‘Inside Out’, an album of rock-jazz fusions distinguished by his own excellent guitar playing, is his personal favourite, but after ‘Sunday’s Child’, when he recognised the possibility that he might be trapped in a soft, tranquil image, he headed to Jamaica to record ‘One World’ an altogether harder, more political album.
Divorce from Beverley was followed by a personally dark period and the eventual release of the ‘Grace and Danger’ album, produced by Phil Collins. This reflects the traumas of his life at the time, but unlike other painfully per tonal albums, it also contains some fine music, balancing powerful songs like the title track with quieter, but emotionally intense numbers, as in ‘Hurt In Your Heart’.
Phil also produced ‘Glorious Fool’, which contained much of his own distinctive sound. The tours that followed saw Martyn playing very much as part of a band, producing some storming interpretations of earlier songs, available on the ‘Philentropy’ album, released on John’s own Body Swerve label.
John remarried in 1983 to Annie Furlong and returned to Scotland since when his succeeding albums have been less personal ‘Sapphire’ contains one of his few overtly political songs, ‘Acid Rain’. Although staunchly left wing, he prefers to leave his songs open to interpretation, keeping them as subtle as he can.
Twenty years on, John’s new album ‘Piece By Piece’ carries on from ‘Sapphire’, introducing a touch more moderninity. This is by no means his first Glastonbury appearance, and he continues to hold affection for the festival, “I like the way it’s organised, and I like the way it was once disorganised. It seems to have been a very logical, rational progression.” Had John’s career been equally rational, it wouldn’t have visited half of the interesting musical islands that is has. Thank goodness for occasional bouts of irrationality.
The full set list –
- Solid Air
- Bless The Weather
- Mad Dog Days
- The Dealer
- Outside In
- Big Muff
- Love Of Mine
- Serendipity
- Looking On
- John Wayne
- Johnny Too Bad
- Over The Rainbow
Nine of the songs are included on the CD release BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert with the remainder later included on CD8 of The Island Years Box Set.
