London Rock Proms
London Olympia National Hall
5th, 6th and 7th July 1974

JOHN MARTYN

From an apprentice folkie to a stylist who combines so many ideas and influences in such a unique way that he defies all the critical pigeonholes (which is the proper definition of the avant-garde artiste), John Martyn has revolutionised his music in the last six years. His records are the proof, although it didn’t feel as apocalyptic as that to John himself: “It’s like your teeth rotting or hair growing – it starts imperceptibly and keeps on going”.

For John Martyn, it started at the Folk Barge in Kingston, and a fat folk-singer who had just made an album of bawdy ballads for a very small record company called Island. The fat man took John along to Island, and he made the first of his seven albums for the company.

In those days he was a pleasant young folkie, singing a selection of his own songs interspersed with numbers by Bob Dylan and the like. The second stage of his career began after he met his future wife Beverley, herself an accomplished writer and singer. Together they made the famous ‘Stormbringer!’ album in New York in 1969, using musicians that included Levon Helm of The Band. It was among the first records on which drums were used as an integral part of an acoustic sound.

On his return to England, John Martyn began to explore the possibilities of electric guitar, in particular trying to translate the music other people were making on other instruments (horns, organ) into guitar terms. He is especially interested in what he calls “the gentle side of electronics” – the music of people like Weather Report’s Joe Zawinul or avant-garde composer Terry Riley.

His current stage act involves a battery of electronic devices which enable him to produce waves of sound in chords and phrases which wash over the audience: “With my electric music what happens is that the note comes out of the pick-up on the guitar and goes into the fuzz-box which I use now and again, and then it goes into a combination of volume and wah-wah pedal which I use a fair bit. It comes out of that and goes into an echoplex which repeats the note so you chop in between rhythms and you can choose your own timings because it’s completely elastic. And you can set the number of repeats. I just like the idea of making a machine human in that way, and I like impressing the humanness of yourself onto a machine rather than the other way round.”

Playing with John Martyn in his live performances is bass-player and wit Danny Thompson, a stalwart of the British jazz scene before his long stint with Pentangle. Together they provide one of the most unusual and satisfying shows around.

DISCOGRAPHY
London Conversations (Island 1968); The Tumbler (Island 1968); Strombringer! (with Beverley Martyn) (Island 1970); The Road to Ruin (with Beverley Martyn) (Island 1970); Bless The Weather (Island 1971); Solid Air (Island 1973); Inside Out (Island 1973).

Other performing artists included Fairport Convention, 10cc, Incredible String Band, Arthur Brown’s Saving Grace, Dr. Feelgood, Kevin Ayers, Camel and more.