The Tumbler, was recorded at Regent Sound Studios, in London’s Soho, over three days and was complete by 11th July 1968.

John recalled, “On London Conversation I’d only been playing guitar for three months, so I was only playing to tunings, E tuning and ordinary tuning. Well between the two albums I got exposed to London, you see, and at that time all the heroes were about, you know, Jansch and Davey Graham, and I just kind of listened a lot to music that I hadn’t listened to before, and I met Harold McNair…. met loads of people all of a sudden. Between the two I just met all these people that were older and more experienced than me musically. That’s the reason for the change.”

Released in December 1968, the album is in the folk tradition but featuring the jazz flautist Harold McNair, on the romantic Dusty, The Gardeners and Fly On Home. As a young man John stayed with his sister who lived near Hampton Court and the song Dusty was inspired by his happy memories of Hampton Court Fair.

This album was produced by Al Stewart and had more of a sparkle than London Conversation and John said, “The album ‘sings’ a bit more than before.”

Of his first two albums John said, “Those were basically acoustic albums….I got bored with the folk /acoustic thing. You can’t keep churning that out, it stifles innovation, kills the personal touch.”

John recalled, “Al Stewart produced The Tumbler… I don’t know why that is; I think it’s because somebody said I should have a producer. Chris Blackwell I think said that. Probably Al Stewart volunteered, because I don’t ever remember asking him. I don’t think I would have been so silly. But we recorded the album in one afternoon which is quite interesting I think. Things were very simple in those days.” The album was recorded in mono, “We were recording it right on the cusp of mono and stereo,” Al Stewart recalled, “I presented it to Island in mono, whereupon they said ‘But it’s supposed to be in stereo.’ So they just stamped stereo on it anyway and to this day I don’t think anyone has noticed! There was an engineer with me in the studio but I don’t suppose my actual production called for very much because I didn’t know anything about recording at the time. It was really simply a case of helping John through the process and saying, ‘That’s great’ or ‘That wasn’t too good, let’s try it again.’ I’ve always felt that to say I produced the album was a slight exaggeration!”

1. Sing A Song Of Summer (J. Martyn)
2. The River (J. Martyn)
3. Goin’ Down To Memphis (J. Martyn)
4. The Gardeners (J. Martyn)
5. A Day At The Sea (J. Martyn)
6. Fishin’ Blues (J. Martyn)
7. Dusty (J. Martyn)
8. Hello Train (J. Martyn)
9. Winding Boy (Morton)
10. Fly On Home (J. Martyn, Wheeler)
11. Knuckeldy Crunch And Slippledee Slee Song (J. Martyn)
12. Seven Black Roses (J. Martyn)

Catalogue Number: ILPS 9091 Island
Matrix / Runout: Side A – ILPS+9091+A and Side B -ILPS+9091+B.

Flute – Harold McNair
Second Guitar – Paul Wheeler
Bass – Dave Moses
Producer – Al Stewart
Cover Design – CCS Advertising Associates Ltd.
Photography – Francine Winham