Interview John Martyn
David Hughes takes time out to discuss the magic spontaneity that makes John Martyn who he is. These skills are elusive to some – yet to John it defines him and his music.
John Martyn grew up in Glasgow and didn’t like football. That tells you something about the man. Other Scottish traditions were harder to shake off. He became a socialist, a fingerpicking guitar prodigy and headed south.
The little cherub with a voice to match his guitar hit the London folk scene with songs like ‘Fairytale Lullaby’ and ‘Run Honey Run’. His first album, London Conversation, was soon an addition to the collections of Jansch and Renbourn from which most student guitarists’ romantic repertoires were drawn. His classic songs and the guitar style that spawned a thousand thumbslapping syncopated disciples live on and this year were honoured by the Lifetime Achievement Folk Award.
In between sessions on the next album, Willing To Work, we talked to John and to two of his long-term collaborators, Alan Thomson and Spencer Cozens.
THE EARLY DAYS
When did you arrive in London?
’66 it would be.
So, is that a couple of years after Bert landed there?
Yeah, Bert was there long before me. There was a very thriving scene in those days. Davey Graham was at his peak. I left home from Scotland at the same time as Bert Jansch and John Renbourn produced an album together.
So how did you find the London scene?
Turn left at Paddington. No, it was very cool. It was very different from anything in Scotland. It was actually thriving. There were far more clubs, you couldn’t fail to get work if you were half-way decent. The audiences were very snobbish. If you played the guitar you’d be a singing cowboy or something like that. They looked down their noses at guitar players.
John Renbourn said it was almost a plus if you played badly.
Ha ha, I’ve tried to avoid that. It was very tolerant, that was the nice thing about it. Anybody could get up and do whatever they wanted, you know what I mean? There’d be a little bit of encouragement at least.
Were you using different tunings at that point or were you mainly…
No, mainly straight at that point, but I was just getting into DADGAD and the one a semitone down from that.
Tell me about Theo Johnson (producer of London Conversation).
Oh, Theo Johnson, he was a funny geezer. He came down to a place called the Folk Barge in Kingston-on-Thames. That was just a bar run by two alcoholics and it was sinking. It used to sink They had a folk club every Friday night and Theo Johnson used to go down there because he lived in Richmond, just round the corner really. He said, “Would you like to make a record?” I said of course I would. So he went up to Island Records and got me a contract. That was that; it was all done in two days. I slept on his floor for a long time. I spent a lot of time sleeping on people’s floors but he was very kind to me; he was a guide and mentor at the time.
Fat Theo.
That’s him.
And then along comes Danny Thompson. How did you come across him?
I think we met in a pub called The Three Horseshoes, Tottenham Court Road. They had folk in there every Monday night. He probably dropped in to tout for a gig. This was before Pentangle started, but Bert and John and Danny were playing that night and we just liked each other.
But then it became obvious that you had a lot to offer each other?
Yeah. We never used to talk about music at all. We just used to rave our way through the days.
SONGWRITING
I’m going to make a bit of a jump here to Bless The Weather. I read something interesting written by John Hillarby. He quoted you saying that you’d made up the lyrics in the studio?
Yeah, I did mostly, yeah. That one and Sunday’s Child were nearly all done in the studio.
“… I do love the band, I must confess. If anyone else tries to poach them, they do co off and play with everybody else as well, but I like them when they play with me (chuckles)”
How much is that your songwriting approach?
Occasionally they all pop up together, but in recent years I’ve lust concentrated on getting a nice little rhythm track and then embellishing that with a vocal.
That’s the way you approach it now?
It is, yeah; it see; : . It’s not a conscious thing, really, you know what I mean? You do what you can.
The Echoplex?
I was just looking for huge amounts of sustain, that’s all I really wanted it for. But then I discovered by accident, once I had it in my hands, that if you went plink, it went plink plonk so you could introduce the rhythms. I was playing ‘Jelly Roll Baker’ and stuff. I’m a very rhythmic player, always have been; rhythm’s one of my strengths.
So the Echoplex just played into your hands?
Yes, I settled down very nicely with a. I still enjoy playing it, it’s great fun.
Taking a later song, say ‘Piece By Piece’, was that prepared or did you write that on the spot?
No, that was actually Foster (Patterson) who wrote that, and it originally had a gruesome lyric about a miner who had been in an
accident and was brought to the surface piece by piece… I said, “Listen, it’s all very well but you can’t really…” (laughs) “I’ll do it with you, you can have the publishing and stuff but I have to do the words again.” So I did.
THE ALBUMS
Can I take you back, then, to One World? Phill Brown, the engineer who worked with you…
Yeah. I bumped into him about two years ago; I did a thing with Sister Bliss. He was doing the sub-mixing on that. He hasn’t changed much at all. He’s much the same.
That was the first time you worked with him, One World, was it?
Yeah.
You recorded at Chris Blackwell’s house in Oxfordshire?
We did.
Was it Phill Brown’s idea, this ambient stuff across the lake?
No, I think it was mine actually. It seemed like a nice thing to do. I wanted the sound to become very big. I wanted it to be sonorous – I think that’s the word I’m looking for – because water is a great reflector of sound. I like that record, yeah.
Had you written those songs prior to…?
They were all prepared.
I think I’ve missed out Phil Collins here.
Oh dear, don’t do that. Phil and I just get on; it’s as simple as that. Every time I meet him it’s just as if he’s always been there, you know what I mean? I don’t find anything strange about him; he doesn’t find much strange about me, we just get on. If you don’t lie to each other, if you tell the truth then it’s simple. He’s very easy to talk to, he’s one of my closest friends and I really love him.
So I mean it’s quite organic that you then produce albums together.
Yeah, I don’t know what happened there; we got on well and still do… He and I are a very good combination…
It marked a point where you were picking up criticism for the direction you were taking away from the acoustic guitar?
I got such a caning for… what was it? Anyway, the first one I did with Phil, it got caned. They went. oh what a load of rubbish, he’s gone all poppy and der der der. I listened to it the other day, just out of spite. It’s lovely, I really like it… I think people were just jealous of Phil, basically, you know what I mean?
You also worked with Robert Palmer on Sapphire? God rest his soul, I miss him very much; the poor chap died on me. I didn’t see it corning. Ever so nice too, and ever so well read and very witty.
One of your trademarks is you’ve always surrounded yourself with great players.
Well, again, it’s not a conscious thing; it’s the way it happens. It’s who you feel comfortable with, that’s who you play with. You don’t design…you don’t go out and find people.
So, you’ve been working now for a long time with Arrun Ahmun and Spencer Cozens and Alan Thomson. Alan, particularly, ‘cos Alan must have been just a kid…
Yeah, he was a boy when we got hold of him; we got hold of him at 19. He didn’t play the bass, actually I couldn’t find a bass player, so he was playing in a band with my cousin. He said, “I can play the bass.” I said, “I bet you can’t.” He just…whoosh! He learned to play the fretless bass in three days — ridiculous. Beautiful player. I much prefer playing with the band these days. I’ve devoted nearly all my time to that over the last few years… I do love the band, I must confess. If anyone else tries to poach them, they do go off and play with everybody else as well, but I like them when they play with me (chuckles).
You were playing a Martin in the 70s, weren’t you?
Oh, that was my old D-28. And the one I’m going to get will be based on a D-28 with a slightly broader neck. As I get older I’m getting arthritis in my fingers so it’s a broader neck, a few millimetres on the neck.
Do you prefer playing, now, Gibsons, the SG and the Les Paul and stuff?
I really don’t mind.
I remember it covered in tapes, wires and pickups.
Yeah, all that. I had a De Armand and every kind of cable you can think of. It had a Barcus Berry… sounds like a black boxer.
WORKING WITH JOHN MARTYN
Alan Thomson (bass): When did you start playing with him?
September 1980.
Was that live or recording?
Live. He had done Grace And Danger with John Giblin and Phil Collins and Tommy Eyre, and I think he’d done a little tour with that line-up and they became unavailable so we went out as a trio with Jeff Allen, formerly of East Of Eden, on drums….
Then you recorded?
Glorious Fool was the first thing that we recorded. That again was a Phil Collins production… That was my first professional recording. I went from complete obscurity as a guitarist to working with my heroes in a very short space of time. It was bizarre.
How did you get the gig?
My now brother-in-law, David Roy, is John’s cousin and he was a sax player. We played in a band together called the Arthur Trout Band… John used to pop round during rehearsals and smoke his jazz cigarettes etc.
How old were you then?
I would be 17 then, 1977. I think he heard me mucking around on the bass because I was certainly a guitarist in those days rather than a bass player. He just dropped in once in a while, and then when he was looking for a bass player to do the Grace And Danger tour. I, fortunately or unfortunately, had lust failed university. I was not going to become an engineer and went for the audition, borrowed a bass, practised frantically and got the gig. I’ve been a bass player ever since.
So you were playing bass with John Martyn — in awe or not?
Just worried I was going to keep my gig as the bass player. I had too much on my mind to be in awe or otherwise; I was just worried about doing the job right more than anything.
So what was it like touring with him in those days?
It was either absolutely fantastic or your worst nightmare multiplied by the biggest number you can think of, times an even bigger number. Musically it was pretty sensational no matter what state our glorious leader was in because fear would keep things rolling nicely.
What kind of fear?
Fear of what was going to come next, musically or otherwise. But it’s very good for you. John’s not particularly one for sticking to arrangements, or even if he thinks he is, he isn’t, and that keeps your ears very finely tuned. You never know whether a verse is going to be three lines long, four lines long, whether it could be followed by another chorus, or a verse, or a solo. It could be any length so everything’s done on a sort of listen and react immediately basis.
And is that the case now as then?
Yeah, I think it is. It has a little less of that sort of youthful energy that he had when he was younger, but yes, it still is the case. That’s the thing I like most about John really – it’s always different, it’s never boring, he’s not going to play the solo from the album note for note every time exactly the same. While there are moments when you think, ugh, not so sure that was good or this might not work out, generally it does and it’s just very exciting to go on and know that something great can happen or it can go pear-shaped, but generally you rely on all the people around you and you pull through in the end.
Spencer Cozens (keyboards): He’s like a business executive – he’s got a very good company, he knows who to choose and why and knows when he can lean on people, and he knows what he can get away with. I mean, there isn’t just one way of doing things. Sometimes when we’ve been recording, you spend the whole day, you get something, you work as well as you can, you think this is going to be good, that’s going to be good, put it together, and John will come and go: “No, it’s wrong, do this…” and he’ll just do something, like for me with keyboards he’ll go: “Get a sound that goes ‘ppheu, freep freep’ or whatever. You go, “what?” But you put it on and then, by the middle of the track, you think, of course, of course. That’s where he directs his own music. He’ll see what happens and then it’s a question of choice. He doesn’t consciously think, ‘oh, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that,’ much.
But they still come out John Martyn songs.
He doesn’t just sit down and then what you’ll hear now will appear on a record in six months time. There’s stuff he’s working on now which I started with him in 2000. Then, he’d noodle about on the guitar and we’d sort of jam maybe a few chords. I thought, well, let’s create a song shape – section A, section B, bridge, chorus, middle eight, blah blah blah – put it in and then orchestrate it in a way that I knew, from my experience, he’d like. And then he came up with ‘Not My Day’ – it’s on the next album.
He’s got an uncanny ability to make the words fit, not just scan, the whole mood of it and, usually, they are so simple as well…
I was going to say that, most of his songs are incredibly simple but he hones it down. I mean, on stage when he’s doing a song and making it up I’m lust amazed what he comes up with.
He’s making it up on stage?
Yeah, he makes things up on stage. I mean, not ‘May You Never’ – he doesn’t mess around with that, but… what kinds of songs…? ‘Cooltides’… If he tunes in to where he’s thinking, that’s where they come from and that’s why, if the mood’s right, like in the studio, he’ll do it. Like ‘Field Of Play’ on Glasgow Walker – we were literally 12 hours from the end of packing up and having to go and it was, “John, we’re going to have to axe this.” You know, the ferry was booked for the morning and we still had the stuff set up that night. He came in at six o’clock, he’d been off and about and we’d kind of pressurised him to do it. He’d had it in his mind, this song about poppies and stuff and the First World War, and he just reeled them off. It was great.
He likes to hit off others in that sense.
Oh, yeah. Especially now when I think physically it’s just a damn sight more difficult for him to just get up, pick his guitar up, sit down, write a song, get some paper. The very fact of moving is much more difficult which is why probably, I don’t know, certainly in the last seven or eight years, more and more and more emphasis has gone on other people doing grooves.
It’s just to sort of exemplify sometimes where he comes from. It’s not all roses, you know, that’s the thing. I think a lot of fans think John sits down, hippy dippy, smokes a spliff, comes up with a song, has a drink and a laugh. It’s not. There’s a lot of nasty, horrible stuff going on too. Pain, you know physical pain for him, and then mental pain and frustration for him when he can’t come up with lyrical ideas and stuff.
Is there a danger he’ll lose the relationship with the guitar that he used to have?
I don’t think he’ll ever lose that.
As we speak, work on the new album is gathering pace. Chill out artists Morcheeba’s new album, Dive Deep, features a cover of ‘Run Honey Run’ from London Conversation.
David Hughes
Acoustic Magazine
1 June 2008
