The Mean Fiddler Organisation in association with the Workers Beer Company organised the Fleadh held in Finsbury Park on Saturday 12 June 1993.
Other artists included Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Runrig, Hothouse Flowers, The Pogues, Stiff Little Fingers and more! There were three stages, the Fleadh Stage, Mean Fiddler Marquee and the Murphy’s Stage. John performed in the Marquee at 7.45pm.
The official programme included a short biography of John reproduced below.
JOHN MARTYN
(Marquee 7.45PM)
is an artist who, though never the centre of mass popularity, has been held in high esteem since his first recordings over 20 years ago. A writer, musician and singer who has constantly defied the rules, he has charted his own eclectic course through the troubled waters of modern music.
Born in 1948 and raised in Glasgow, John has always struck a fine balancing act between simplicity and virtuosity, romance, realism and nostalgia and modernism. His 21st album, ‘Couldn’t Love You More’, released last October by Permanent Records, provided a flick through the back pages of the past two decades.
Together with such stellar side-men as Dave Gilmore, Phil Collins and The London Community Gospel Choir’s Reverend Bazil Meade, John revisited and updated old songs like ‘Over The Hill’, ‘Solid Air’, and ‘One World’. Smooth and dreamily soulful, it was forward looking as well as retrospective and provided a fine introduction to an awesome body of work.
One of the first white artists signed to Island Records in 1968, John Martyn recorded his debut album, ‘London Conversation’, when he was just 18. The follow-up, ‘The Tumbler’, came from the same folk base but tossed jazz colouring into the eclectic brew. Married to Beverly Kutner in 1969, and inspired by The Band’s ‘Music From The Big Pink’, he moved to rockier pastures on ‘Stormbringer’ and ‘The Road To Ruin’ before returning to a spontaneous guitar, bass and vocal format for the 1971 album, ‘Bless The Weather’.
The subsequent ‘Solid Air’, its title track written for the late Nick Drake, is widely regarded as one of his two seminal works (the other is the reggae-flavoured ‘One World’). It was followed by a foray into free-form cosmic jazz with ‘Inside Out’, the more conventional ‘Sunday’s Child’ and an official live bootleg that was initially sold only by mail order from the artist’s home.
In 1976, Martyn visited Jamaica and worked with the legendary dub master Lee Perry before cutting ‘One World’ with producer Chris Blackwell. With the break-up of his marriage, his next album ‘Grace And Danger’, produced by Phil Collins, was three years in coming and painfully stark in its revelations when it did. As the singer later admitted, “some people keep diaries, I make records”.
The early ’80s saw John temporarily leave Island. Two albums on Warners ensued before a return to Island. His next record, ‘Sapphire’, recorded in Nassau, was a deft mix of soul, funk and reggae, underpinned by his peerless singing: it is said that Martyn has turned the slurred vocal mumble into an art form. Two more Island albums, ‘Piece By Piece’, and ‘Foundations’, were followed by two on Permanent, ‘The Apprentice’ and ‘Cool Tide’, before last year’s journey through his musical memoirs.
John Martyn now divides his time between New York, Los Angeles and Scotland. He is still extraordinarily popular on tour, playing to packed houses of dedicated followers. A solo voice of rare colour and tone, John Martyn remains unique.
Adrian Thrills
