The Apprentice (Remastered And Expanded)
Apprentice, journeyman, master craftsman
John Martyn was anything but an apprentice, an electrifying virtuoso guitarist, singer and songwriter who obliterated all stereotypes with his music. His unique fusion of blues, folk, jazz, reggae and rock is beyond compare. A master craftsman who had learned his trade, continually exploring and evolving throughout his career, always spontaneous and always taking chances with his music. His innovative records defied categorisation, he took the never travelled road to produce some of the most compelling and mesmerising music of his era.
John arrived in London from Glasgow in the summer of 1967 where he’d been a regular in local folk clubs guided by folk musician Hamish Imlach who could see his potential and had taken him under his wing. Bunjies and Les Cousins were the pre-eminent folk clubs with well known guitarists Al Stewart, Ralph McTell, John Renbourn, and Michael Chapman all making regular appearances. It wasn’t long before John attracted attention through his performances.
John signed to Island Records in 1967 and released his debut album London Conversation in October that year. “I was playing a club called The Folk Barge in Kingston, and a fat man called Theo Johnson came up to me and said, ‘I will make you a star.’ Literally, quite literally! Verbatim! And I said, ‘Go ahead then,’ and he took the record to Chris Blackwell, he made a demo disc of two songs, and introduced me, and there you are!” Caribbean ska and reggae musicians dominated early releases on the fledgling label, John was reputably the first white artist to sign. Blackwell recalls, “I liked him and loved his voice, so I signed him.”
London Conversation was recorded at Tony Pyke’s home studio in Putney in glorious mono when John was just nineteen years old, and mastered at Pye Studios, Marble Arch for the princely sum of £158. With the exception of the obligatory Bob Dylan cover Don’t Think Twice and Sandy Grey penned by Robin Frederick, John wrote all the songs and played them beautifully with the freshness of youth. A little over a year later his second album The Tumbler followed, a more adventurous jazz influenced offering that featured flautist Harold McNair, Dave Moses on bass and friend Paul Wheeler on guitar.
In 1969 John married Beverley Kutner, a singer from Coventry, who was recording with producer Joe Boyd of Witchseason. Boyd had been instrumental in the success of Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band and Nick Drake. John and Beverley’s Stormbringer! was released in 1970 and featured the introduction of John’s echoplex guitar technique on Would You Believe Me and The Ocean, the echoplex went on to become omnipresent in his studio albums and concert performances. The Road to Ruin released later the same year was to be John and Beverley’s last album together after Island decided that John should revert to recording solo, “they didn’t want to hear Beverley sing, which is a terrible thing, I still think they’re extremely wrong.”
Bless The Weather followed in November 1971, many of the songs were written in the studio on the day they were recorded, satisfying John’s desire to be spontaneous. Danny Thompson provided bass and Richard Thompson (Fairport Convention), Tony Reeves (Colosseum), Ian Whiteman and Roger Powell (Mighty Baby) all played on the album. Glistening Glyndebourne highlighted John’s technique of playing acoustic guitar through the echoplex to stunning effect. John described Bless The Weather as “very innocent, very beautiful and a pleasure to make.”
John’s most well known album Solid Air was released in February 1973. The title track written for John and Beverley’s dearest friend and fellow musician Nick Drake. A host of musicians contributed including John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick, Danny Thompson, Tony Coe, Sue Draheim, Tristan Fry, Speedy Acquaye and most of Fairport Convention, the distinctive Fabio Nicoli designed sleeve is structured around a photograph by John Webster using Schlieren photography, a process for photographing the flow of liquids and air.
John’s voice was now integrated with his music more than ever, his slurred delivery being used as another instrument on the passionate and powerful album, that for many remains as their ‘go to’ John Martyn album. “A great album…as a single overall expression ‘Solid Air’ flows beautifully and shows the entire spectrum of music that John Martyn has at his fingertips” wrote Sounds. Notwithstanding the acclaim that Solid Air provided, John was driven to explore and move on musically. Island anticipated John’s next album to be more of the same, but they got something very different! Inside Out is intensely personal, an exhilarating listen, saturated with free jazz, echoplex experimentation, distortion effects and blended vocals that became one with the music. “The industry wanted another Solid Air and they let me loose in the studio, a totally free hand they must have been mad,” said John.
1975’s Sunday’s Child was less demanding listening but remains a powerfully personal account of John’s life. “The family album, very happy purely romantic…a nice period”, Spencer The Rover and My Baby Girl (which featured Beverley on vocals for the last time) are dedicated to son Spenser and daughter Mhairi.
John toured extensively in 1975, a full-blooded, uncompromising concert at Leeds University was recorded for a live album release. Island didn’t want to release it, so John produced, designed and sold Live At Leeds by mail-order from his Hastings home. The limited edition of 10,000, many individually numbered and signed by John, quickly sold out.
Exhausted from touring John took a sabbatical in Jamaica in 1976 and met a host of musicians including Max Romeo and dub master Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, “I honestly believe I would have gone completely round the bend had I not gone and done that.” Recording of his next album One World started in July 1977 over a three week period in the courtyard of Chris Blackwell’s Woolwich Green Farm in Theale, Berkshire. The house was in the middle of a lake and equipment was set up on each side of the lake so that it picked up the sound of water lapping, and a distant ‘strangled’ sound on the guitar which was perfect for lead solos. Most of the recording was carried out between 3am and 6am and these quiet hours before dawn created the most magical atmosphere for recording, resulting in two of John’s most popular songs One World and Small Hours.
Island released a compilation album So Far So Good in March 1977 which included a live version of I’d Rather Be The Devil. John disagreed with the choice of tracks but was too busy recording One World to get involved.
1980’s Grace and Danger is a collection of powerful, personal and painful songs documenting the breakdown of John and Beverley’s marriage. Brand X’s John Giblin played bass, and Phil Collins who was also going through a divorce played drums and backing vocals. Island boss Chris Blackwell, a close friend of John and Beverley’s, delayed release for a year as he found the album too personal and openly disturbing. John later said that it was “probably the most specific piece of autobiography I’ve written. Some people keep diaries, I make records.”
John left Island and signed to WEA Records for his next two albums, the Phil Collins produced Glorious Fool released in September 1981, its satirical title track dedicated to Ronald Reagan, charted for seven weeks, reaching twenty five. Well Kept Secret followed in September 1982 and reached the top twenty, Ronnie Scott played tenor sax on Never Let Me Go, “the songs are warm and intelligent and a majority of Well Kept Secret is pacier and louder than he’s ever been on one album before…it’s a good record, a class record.” Wrote New Musical Express. Coinciding with the release of Well Kept Secret, Island released The Electric John Martyn in October, a compilation including US mixes of Dancing, Certain Surprise and Dealer and the 12 inch dub version of Johnny Too Bad.
John toured extensively in 1983 visiting Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, and Europe. In November 1983 he released a live album Philentropy recorded in London, Brighton and Oxford on his own Body Swerve Label.
John returned to Island Records to record his next album Sapphire at Compass Point studios in the Bahamas. The Robert Palmer produced album was released in November 1984. The Guardian wrote, “In an era when empty gestures of style proliferate in music, Martyn’s music speaks with an uncommon candour, intelligence, and intensity. At times, the combination of guitar and synthesiser creates a sound which appears to come rolling across the stalls like a tsunami wave, pinning you to your seat…John Martyn strikes the perfect balance between virtuosity and modernism. Put simply he is in a league of his own.”
John celebrated twenty years as a performer in 1986, an occasion marked by the release of the world’s first commercially available compact disc single Angeline, taken from John’s album Piece By Piece released in February of that year. Recorded at Ca Va Sound in Glasgow with producer Brian Young, John said “it’s a bit more mature and sophisticated, what do you expect from a thirty seven year old man? It’s not going to be raucous and punkish, hardly going to have the U2 feel about it.”
By now John was one of the most revered and innovative singer-songwriters of his generation with a substantial back catalogue, his pedigree as a master craftsman was beyond challenge, or was it?
In March 1987 John returned to the studio to record a new album at Island Studios the Fallout Shelter. The Apprentice was completed by April 1987, however the overall sound wasn’t what Island Records wanted, and so the album was mixed again in June at The Roundhouse Studios. Despite the remix Island Records remained unhappy and rejected the album. They were expecting something different from John but didn’t seem to know quite what! Brian Young of Ca Va Sound recalled, “They were heavily trying to push John into being the next Chris Rea… but John was quite happy with the early Apprentice.” With the unexpected end of a twenty year association with Island John found himself out of contract approaching his fortieth birthday.
John took time out but what should’ve been a brief period of reflection extended into a few dark months of substance assisted relaxation. In October 1987 Island released a live album Foundations recorded at the Town and Country Club, London in November 1986 whilst John was still under contract. Bizarrely the album included live performances of three songs that Island had previously rejected; The Apprentice, Deny This Love and Send Me One Line.
After a period of contemplation and consolidation, a refreshed and reinvigorated John committed head on to the challenge of recording with or without a record company. It was a clean slate for John, no existing restraints or expectations and he relished working on The Apprentice with Brian Young at Ca Va Sound. The musical challenge augmented by a complete lifestyle change on doctors’ orders. “I was into everything and, even now, I genuinely believe I found out stuff that I wouldn’t have done otherwise. In fact, the only drug I regret getting involved with is alcohol: it’s the only one I couldn’t beat.”
“I live an extraordinarily healthy life these days, drinking orange juice and swimming forty lengths in the morning. When I stopped drinking recently, I was a chronic alcoholic, two bottles of rum every day and still going. I’ve had a few relapses but waking up every day with a hangover had become unbearable. When you have to have three large ones to straighten yourself up before you can face the world, you’re in trouble. But ‘alcoholic’ is the last word you use about yourself, when you finally realise that you have a problem. As soon as you finally admit to yourself that you are dependent and that’s what’s holding you together, then you can either do something about it or carry on and die.”
“I really haven’t a clue why the old record company didn’t like it. I believed in it; I even re-recorded it in Glasgow at my own expense. But in the end, they weren’t interested; the only thing left to do was to sell it myself, so I decided to toddle off. I was very annoyed with life in general at that point, I’m not used to failing! But I’m hoping this signals the end of ‘five board meetings before you’re allowed to record a demo single’, and that the new arrangement with Permanent will enable me to get things out more quickly. If I want to, I’ll be able to nip into the studio for two days and record an EP of standards.”
John signed to Permanent Records a label set up by John Lennard his manager and concert promoter. Four years after his last album John returned to the fray with his fifteenth studio album and possibly his finest since the emotional exorcism of Grace and Danger.
Unlike Grace and Danger John was in love, content and enjoying life, and this is portrayed in the songs. The Apprentice was released in March 1990, Britain was in recession, there was widespread rioting across the country in protest at the poll tax and John Major became Prime Minister. The distinctive cover is a painting by Andy Larwood, the predictive art concept emerging from ‘putting the word to rights’ with John in The Bulldog Coffee Shop in Amsterdam whilst on tour. Death and dissolution foretold as the consequence of failing to address environmental challenges facing the world. Thirty two years later what if anything has changed?
With the exception of Patterns In The Rain, written by Edinburgh born keyboardist, arranger and composer, Foster Paterson, all the songs were penned by John. He selected accomplished musicians and a first class production team to work on the album; Foss Paterson played keyboards, Dave ‘Taif’ Ball bass, Arran Ahmun drums, Colin Tully and Andy Sheppard contributed saxophone, Danny Cummings percussion and backing vocals, Taj Wyzgowski on rhythm guitar and Danusia Zaremba backing vocals.
Foss had toured and worked extensively with John since 1984, played with Any Trouble and David Knopfler before working with ex Marillion frontman Fish on his solo albums and tours, and prog rock band Camel.
Composer and saxophonist Colin Tully first met John whilst playing in the street in Glasgow at the tender age of four, little did he know that thirty years later he would be playing in John’s band! Colin was a member of rock band Cado Belle in the 70s and subsequently gained widespread recognition for composing the music to films That Sinking Feeling and the Bill Forsyth written and directed rom com Gregory’s Girl. Sadly, Colin passed away in 2021 at the age of sixty six.
John Coltrane inspired multi award winning Andy Sheppard to take up the saxophone at just nineteen and Yorkshire born percussionist Danny Cummings has recorded and performed with a host of top names including Dire Straits, George Michael, and Talk Talk, embracing a wide range of musical genres including African, Rock, Latin and Blues. Guitarist Taj Wyzgowski has performed with Bonnie Raitt, Paul Brady, Deacon Blue and Jack Bruce.
Drummer and percussionist Arran Ahmun started performing with John in 1986 and introduced Dave “Taif” Ball to John in 1987. Taif played with Barbara Thompson’s Paraphernalia, Steve Hackett, Vanessa Mae, and Jon Hiseman’s Colosseum. “Playing bass with John Martyn wasn’t like playing bass with U2, it was a challenge, every night.”
Arran was a stalwart of John’s band, touring and recording until John’s death in 2009 having also toured and worked with Clannad, Squeeze, The Proclaimers and Gerry Rafferty amongst others. “To me, playing with John meant satisfaction… most of the music I play is just a means to an end, but John was more than just a job. It was art at its finest.”
In conversation with John, I asked what had inspired the album’s title song, “It’s a song about a man I met in a bar, and he looked pretty ill. He was a very sick man, he was gaunt, and his body was pained and withered. He worked at the nuclear plant at Sellafield and he had cancer, and he was convinced that working at Sellafield was causing his illness. He was only a young man but died. A terrible way to die. It took personal experience of something like that to make it hit home. To be involved and know someone who was dying like that. These things have to be brought into the open.” Perhaps unsurprisingly the working title was Nuclear.
Live On Love, the first track on The Apprentice, is optimistic, powerful, and upbeat with subtle lead guitar simmering behind the final chorus; what it is to be saved by the love of a woman. Colin Tully’s flowing sax opens The River with a bittersweet vocal from John, the song inspired by one of John’s musical heroes American actor and bass baritone Paul Robeson.
The gorgeous ballad Look At The Girl is written about John’s now grown up daughter ‘My Baby Girl’ Mhairi and the blistering power of Income Town, a personal attack on capitalism is seemingly live from the mythical Green Banana in Toronto. Typical of the man’s sense of humour!
Send Me One Line is quintessential John Martyn, a romantic ballad inspired by Helene Hanff’s book 84 Charing Cross Road telling the story of twenty years of correspondence with Frank Doel of the antiquarian booksellers Marks & Co. in London.
The film adaptation starred Anne Bancroft as Helene Hanff, Anthony Hopkins as Frank Doel and Judi Dench as Nora Doel. John told me, “Joe Lustig rang me and asked me to write a song for the film, so I read the book and wrote the song, I think it’s a nice little tune. I wrote the song and then forgot about it, so it was too late to be used in the film!”
Deny This Love with its rugged sax backbone was remixed and released as a single (the cappella introduction being lost) with a live version of The Apprentice on the B side. Both songs are added as bonus songs to this expanded release. John’s magnificent, restrained guitar on Hold Me, is a delight and the joyful bossa nova Upo express John’s contentment with life.
The Moment (sadly omitted from the original vinyl release due to space) with its beautiful emotional tugging vocal is saturated with heartache. The album closes with Patterns in the Rain, strings abound in the captivating arrangement by Foss Paterson, “Foster Paterson co-wrote the lyrics with me. I’ve worked with Foster for seven or eight years. When I’ve got someone else’s framework to work with I’ve no hesitation about putting lots of production on it.” The Apprentice is full of memorable songs and John is in fine voice, rarely receiving the recognition he deserved as a singer, John’s singing is outstanding throughout and is conceivably one of his best vocal performances.
We join John and band on 31st March 1990 at the beginning of an extensive UK tour with eleven nights at London’s Shaw Theatre, before he travels to Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, and The Netherlands. The Shaw Theatre in the heart of London was built in 1971 and is named after the playwright and novelist George Bernard Shaw, it’s an intimate venue holding less than 500 people. “…the tracks are going to change a great deal when we play them on this tour, because apart from the bass player [Alan Thomson] who I’ve been with for ten years, all the musicians I’m working with now are very young. Well, compared to me they are… There’s Miles Bould on percussion, Spencer Cozens on keyboards, Dave Lewis on sax; they’re more jazzers than anything else, and sometimes it’s very cerebral stuff! They’ve got a very sweet approach to music. They do a lot of organic eating; no, I’m lying about the organic eating, but we’re not a ‘let’s go out, get drunk and wreck a hotel band.’”
John starts the concert performing The Easy Blues and May You Never on his 1972 Martin D28 acoustic guitar (for the guitar aficionado’s out there), before switching to a 1983 Tokai LS120 Lemon Burst for the echoplex spectacular Dealer/Outside In segue, and then to his 1983 Tokai Flamingo Orange Springy Sound for the remainder of the concert. “My favourite piece at the moment has to be my pink Tokai ‘Strat’, which is actually better than my black, three bolt neck, Fender Stratocaster. I’m not that genned up on electric guitars and have no particular bias towards Japanese or American instruments, but I know a good guitar when I play one.”
“There’s some freak on the stage!” John declares as he introduces Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour to a stunned audience. Gilmour is a long time admirer of John’s music and is clearly enjoying his guest appearance playing on John Wayne, Look At The Girl, Lookin’ On, Johnny Too Bad and One World (albeit only 3 songs are on the DVD). This two hour plus cornucopia of acoustic and electric music includes songs taken from John’s 1970’s and 80’s albums and is bang up to date with five songs from The Apprentice. Many of the back catalogue songs have been re arranged in such a way that they have kept their original charm and imagination but have a fresh ‘out of the wrapper crispness.’ It’s a head turning performance, delivered by a man clearly enjoying himself in the moment, beguiling and reflective, with beautifully crafted melodies and distinctive honesty.
Three further studio albums followed The Apprentice on the Permanent Records label, Cooltide in 1991, complete with twelve minute title track and then up to date rearrangements of some of John’s most loved songs on both 1992’s Couldn’t Love You More and 1993’s No Little Boy, before John signed to Go Discs! and delivered the adventurous trip hop and funk influenced And released in 1996.
In 1998 John covered a whole generation of blues classics from Portishead’s Glory Box to Billy Holiday’s Strange Fruit, on The Church With One Bell that reverberates with John’s vast musical talent. Glasgow Walker followed in 2000 and was a major departure for John in that it was the first album he wrote on keyboards instead of his trusty guitar.
Charismatic, uncompromising, and charming John enjoyed life to the full. During his long career he survived being shot at, stabbed, a broken neck suffered when a car he was travelling in collided with a cow, an exploding pancreas and in 2003 had his leg amputated below the knee following a burst Baker’s cyst.
Throughout, his music was always to the fore, On The Cobbles was released in 2004, John dedicating the album “to the surgical team and nurses of Orthopaedic Ward One at Waterford Hospital, Waterford Ireland.” He remained determined, good humoured and resilient, meeting the challenge head on, the BBC capturing this period of his life in the documentary Johnny Too Bad screened in 2006.
On 4th February 2008, John received a lifetime achievement award at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. John’s friend Phil Collins presented the award and Eric Clapton said John was, “so far ahead of everything, it’s almost inconceivable.” He continued to tour until November 2008.
John was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to music in the 2009 New Year Honours list but sadly was not able to receive the award as he passed away on 29th January 2009. The world lost one of the most innovative singer songwriter and guitarists it had ever known, and I announced the passing of my friend on his website simply saying, “With heavy heart and an unbearable sense of loss we must announce that John died this morning.”
John’s last studio album was a work in progress, Heaven and Earth was completed posthumously and released in May 2011. “Most of this record was recorded in every room of the house on Woolengrange. It was done while everyday life was going on… looking at birds, gizmo barking, peat and logs on the fire, tin cans, tea pots and candles, boiling kettles, simmering recipes, Robbie Burns prose, warm port and herbal aromas all huddled around with Buddah looking on.”
This boxed set captures a rejuvenated John enjoying his life and his music. Surrounded by superb musicians, he delivers an outstanding album and a compelling live performance. The Apprentice is a triumph over adversity, meticulously crafted by a master.
In sunshine or in shadow, but always from the heart. The Apprentice was everything John wanted it to be.
John Hillarby
