John Martyn, Spencer the Rover; Beverley Martyn, The Phoenix and the Turtle

Prompts

John Martyn’s version of traditional song Spencer the Rover, from album Sunday’s Child, is one of his most beautiful, and that comes from such a richness of others. As John Hillarby writes here in his detailed and excellent review of the remastered SC album, ‘John later dedicated this song to his son Spencer’. You can listen to a live performance here [watch for the early duff note and John's giggle. Lovely, as is the subsequent singing and playing].

I was prompted to think of this today when reading Uncut and a short article on Beverley Martyn’s imminent album release The Phoenix & The Turtle. She is quoted as saying, in commenting on one of the album’s songs Women and Malt Whiskey, ‘there’s a verse about our son, who is a bit wild. He didn’t have a good father’s hand, John didn’t teach him good things.’

In one sense it is sad to read observations like this, but in another it is widely documented that there was considerable unhappiness in their marriage [and thus eventual split] and one has to respect her thoughts and feelings. Indeed, and not wishing to make light of the comment and her experiences, there is another quote from Hillarby’s review which is attributed to John as stating his own father taught him ‘how to fish and fuck and ride a bike’, and this certainly adds probable credence to Beverley’s tart observation.

Whatever, readers of this blog will know that I revere John, and in terms of his recordings, the two albums he made with then wife Beverley will always be favourites, serving very much as my introduction to John as an outstanding artist.I would have been delighted had they recorded more together.

You can preorder Beverley’s album here, as I have just done, and by doing so you will on its release receive a signed copy.

John Martyn - Early Posters

John Martyn - Solid Air, 1972 - Top Fifty

May You Never Forget

This is undoubtedly John Martyn’s most popular album, following on from Bless the Weather and including the title track which was written for Nick Drake after his sad early death. This song and album once again joins the idiosyncratic bass playing of Danny Thompson with Martyn’s acoustic guitar and equally distinctive vocal, now beginning to develop a slightly lower timbre – a nuance – but not the jazz slur of his next album; however, the sax of Tony Coe and vibes of Tristan Fry hint at the jazzier sounds to come later in John’s career.

Second Over the Hill returns us to the folk song/sound upon which John established his career and which graced so much of Bless the Weather, mandolin, autoharp and violin all played by Richard Thompson on this bright track. Next song Don’t Want to Know and seventh May You Never are two of the most beautiful and well-known songs written by Martyn, the latter probably having the most covers of any one of his works [a problematic homage in that John’s originals are so perfect]. 

I’d Rather Be the Devil provides another outing for John’s use of echoplex and other effects on his guitar and it is a dynamic piece of bluesrock with the soloing presaging so much of the brilliance we would all enjoy over the years, especially seeing Martyn playing live – listen to the exquisite echoplexed acoustic soundscapes dancing above Danny’s complex bass lines. Dreams By The Sea is another rousing rock track and these two definitely produce more overall variety on this album. The instrumental contribution of Rabbit (John Bundrick) – reviewed elsewhere on this site – plays a key role in the jazzier range too.  Closer The Easy Blues/Gentle Blues illustrates John's virtuoso playing of acoustic blues, the speed matched by Danny's dueling double bass and it is such a delightful tandem romp. Unforgettable brilliance throughout.

Gone too soon aged 60, but never forgotten

John Martyn - Bless the Weather, 1971 - Top Fifty

Bless John Martyn

If I was only allowed one album out of all that I have and even all that are available from forever, it would be John Martyn’s Bless The Weather. And if similarly I was only allowed one song out of all those available in the infinite musical universe, it would be Head and Heart from this album.

This third solo album presents John at his sweetest – the sweetest songwriting, the sweetest vocal and the sweetest guitar playing, all as on opener Go Easy with its honeyed guitar chords and the youthful vocal register so different to the gruff slur and growl of John’s eventual vocal instrument. Second and title track Bless the Weather is of course a classic in the broadest sense but also in Martyn’s oeuvre, the distinctive slap guitar playing of John himself and then the accompaniment of great pal and genius double bass player Danny Thompson, a match made in whatever sonic heaven oversees such musical gifts bestowed on this aural world and where John now roars and jokes in a Scottish accent utterly incomprehensible and yet innately and cosmically endearing. The expressions of emotion in both these opening tracks reflect all of the happy hope and positive romanticism for life and love we all then had a right to wish for and now embrace  wherever it was achieved and still endures - whatever loss being tempered by the beautiful expression of that initial idealism.

John with Danny

Third track Sugar Lump reminds us that John was also a rocker and a rogue - the boogie rhythms, the punchy harmonica and the guitar licks presenting his other great musicality; the lyrics reflecting his naughtiness, his wicked charm [of course there’s a long blues tradition of lyrical innuendo aped here, but John was also hilariously obscene when performing, especially in his expletive-laden banter with Danny on stage]: Get down mama to my sugar cube/Get down mama, won’t you try to make it move, my sugar cube.

Tracks four and five, respectively Walk To The Water and Just Now, are further examples of the felicity Martyn had with prettiness in melody and sentiment at this time, the former graced with the surprise of steel drums, the latter the simplest and yet sweetest strummed guitar with piano accompaniment presenting a gorgeous song, reminiscent of a folk sound honed on his two previous albums with then wife Beverley.

John and Beverley

And then there is sixth Head and Heart, a song gently but profoundly honest in its expression of love where fear is so much a part of its declaration. The guitar work is again classic Martyn with the slap and pluck of the rhythm and then quick lead licks, Danny Thompson bending his notes and running them up and down in that magical partnership, and the lyrical poetry of lines like

Only got my fate

A bird above you

You know we all get scared from time to time

Love me with your head and heart

Love me from the very start

Love me with your head and heart

Love me like a child

Seventh is the plaintive beauty of Let The Good Things Come with Beverley echoing lines in the background, and eighth is another in the treasure chest of these sweetly crafted gems, the tender Back Down The River – guitar and vocal in the sweet symbiosis of this folk quintessence and time in Martyn’s career.

Not really true - Island was shrewd and commercial enough to see the greater potential in John going solo; and it is technically his third solo album

The penultimate instrumental Glistening Glyndebourne introduces the jazz aura that would become an increasingly strong influence in Martyn’s writing and performance, but more importantly, it introduces the electro-acoustic cosmos of Martyn’s guitar world, here presented through the echoplex prism which electronically echoed and repeated and swirled the beautiful melodies and skills of John’s playing. As I have written elsewhere, it was at Essex University in Colchester where I first heard John playing with his echoplex, having gone to see and hear this acoustic folk god which Bless the Weather had introduced, when at some stage in the set and suddenly without warning John flicked a switch somewhere on a machine and in my and most other unsuspecting heads, and this psychedelic tsunami of echoing sound surged through the PA which, as they say, blew me away. If there was one musical experience that I could relive, it would be this special and extraordinary one which to this day amazes in its recalled surprise and joy.

The album closes on another surprise, John’s simple version of Singin’ In The Rain with all its folk jollity and skill in the guitar playing.

It must be obvious that even though I am not going to produce a chronology for my whole Top Fifty – whenever eventually finished – this album will definitely be at the top. It is there first and foremost for the music, but also for the memories of a time in my life where such perfection in that music and honest joy in its lyrical expressions encapsulated genuine content. The encapsulation also of full awe – no diminishing qualifier for this album!

John Martyn - Inside Out, 1973 - Top Fifty

Sublime Inside Out and Anywhere Else

This is a cheat as I have already posted what follows from the next paragraph in September, 2011 [frightening flight of time], but as I recently acknowledged regarding the first three Jimi Hendrix albums – and even perhaps the first three Quintessence albums considering my most recent posts – there are artists whose work must appear in my Top Fifty, and John’s seven studio albums from numbers 5-11 have to be there: omission and inclusion of others at their expense is simply pratting around with variety rather than honest application of feeling as well as actual playing time.

John's fifth solo album [seventh studio], released in 1973, this sublime collection marks the beginnings of his musical trajectory towards jazzier writing/performance and the use of his voice as a distinctive instrument to match his peerless guitar playing. The songs are bolstered by Danny Thompson's supreme double bass playing as well as by luminaries like Steve Winwood on keyboards and Chris Wood on saxophone.

First track Fine Lines is a beautiful melodic song in John's inimitable folk-acoustic style, but the slur in the voice that will become so prevalent across this whole album and all future work has its incipient roots here. Third Ain't No Saint signals the much more experimental writing too: a jazz-chant about Love [as John writes comically and always somewhat self-effacingly, as if his seriousness shouldn't be taken that seriously: love...love...love...love...tra la la...triddly dee dee], the voice oozes this word over dancing acoustic riffs with tabla and other energetic percussion provided by Remi Kabaka.

Inverted title and fourth track Outside In makes psychedelic use of the signature Echoplex that John perfected, especially when playing live. This song is gloriously expansive in its guitar range and with Thompson's bass dancing in and out of the groove. The saxophone puts in layers of slow romantic jazz with John's punchy bursts of more chanted love, it is love, guitar now echoing and looping its waterfalls of sweet chord sequences, until the voice growls and shouts out in ecstasy. John has spoken of the inspiration behind such a sound:

I don't think I would have done some of the stuff on Inside Out if I hadn't heard 'Karma' ['Karma' by Pharoah Sanders, released in 1969]. The only reason I bought the Echoplex was to try and imitate Sanders' sustain on my guitar…I pursued the fuzz box and its various accompanying things just to try and get the sustain that you can get from a sax. I just really wanted infinite sustain at the press of a button. And I almost achieved it. And it sounded so sweet to me. And I knew that people would like to hear it because nothing like it was around. If it makes me feel good, I kind of have this touching faith that it's going to stay with somebody else.

Sixth track Look In is a fuzzed-up rock gem, and the Martyn growl continues to mature, though the song finishes on his delicate best. Beverley is a beautiful instrumental for then wife, with Thompson's bowed bass perhaps full of lament under the acoustic core and then gorgeous straining electric lead. Eighth Make No Mistake is classic Martyn songcraft but with the voice again working through more range and variation, and this too ends on a love-chant

A love
Love again
A love supreme, divine
Anyway that you want it to be
Love - Its love, its love
Love! Love! Love!
A love supreme, a love supreme
A love supreme, a love supreme
Make no mistake,
Make no mistake, its love
Make no mistake, its love
Make no mistake, its love…

Penultimate track Ways To Cry is starkly emotive in its honest, complex message If I ever took another woman I was in my need for you/If I ever took another woman I was bleeding for you, and last track So Much In Love With You signs off on a pure-jazz, voice-hazed declaration that not only indelibly brands his love-statement into our aural consciousness, but fully establishes the direction of so much of his future sublime music.

Elixir Of Escape

John Martyn - When It's Dark [Demo], Solid Air, Deluxe Edition

One of John's most soothing and beautiful songs, and as a demo very simply done on solo acoustic guitar. If you are ever in the place of its title, this will go some way to alleviate.

One And Only

John Martyn - Live in Bologne Italy, 18th May, 1977

I'm never far away from listening to John Martyn. He is my one definitive musical touchstone. I'm listening to a bootleg copy of this excellent concert, broadcast at the time on FM radio and easy to find and download. There's all the excellent guitar work, the singing of brilliant songs, and the gruff hilarious banter.

I'm posting this because I have just listened to the most beautiful performance of One World. Sublime. And as I write John is performing a stonking echoplexed Outside In with stunning vocal. This is glorious. Spencer the Rover is next....

Johnny Boy Would Love This

John Martyn tribute album - Johnny Boy Would Love This

With the imminent release of John Martyn's posthumous album Heaven and Earth there is also the tribute album scheduled for release on 12th July to look forward to.

As a taster you can download a lovely cover of 'You Can Discover' by Cheryl Wilson. Here is the link for this - http://www.johnmartyn.info/node/1166.

This is a beautiful track and Wilson's voice is excellent [I don't know her as an artist] and, though I'm bound to say this, it is the perfection of the song itself from album Sunday's Child that carries her fine vocals. John is on guitar too, and just after a fluffed start he says 'My fault entirely', whilst at the end of the song he is also heard to comment, in that typical Martynesque understatement, 'Think you might have it there': genuine praise indeed.

There is an affectionate but certainly candid review of John Martyn's album Heaven and Earth by Graeme Thomson in the June issue of Uncut. The following pullquote reflects the honest assessment I guess of this, though fans like me will not care about any negatives, agreed or not, and relish another recorded chapter of this great man's musical gifts: 'Heaven and Earth is flawed, undeniably, but rudely, robustly alive.....'

Hurt in your heart

John Martyn - Heaven and Earth

John Martyn's posthumous album is due for release on 3rd May. I have tonight downloaded from Amazon his 4 tracks from the two Transatlantic Sessions in which he was involved: all are brilliant and a necessary fix until the album arrives. I also watched a few clips of John on YouTube, including two performances of 'Hurt in Your Heart', and it's still hard to watch and think about him being gone and how much he was a part of my musical and other life. And yes I eat quiche too.

Bless the Weather and John

As I write I am listening to cd2 from the deluxe edition of John Martyn's great album 'Solid Air'. This is apparently regarded by many as their favourite. For me it is 'Bless the Weather' and it's a combination of genuinely preferring all the songs there but also seeing him play so many of these live and listening at a time when my emotions were deeply influenced by the songs' sentiments. 'Head and Heart' is my favourite track.

In a previous post I referred to 'Bless the Weather' as my first introduction to John but that's not true. Not a lie, just an over-enthusiastic chronological error. I first heard John Martyn on the 'You Can All Join In' sampler, referenced in the previous post, and it was the track 'Dusty' from his 'The Tumbler' album which I then bought. Although a smooth vocal on this one track, there is a depth that presages, if only slightly, how John's vocal distinctiveness would progress. Hooked, I subsequently purchased both 'The Road to Ruin' and 'Stormbringer' by John and Beverly Martyn.

But it's 'Bless the Weather' that established the awe. Such beautiful songwriting and singing, and of course the guitar work. It was at his first gig I saw when John - using acoustic but with pick-up, amp and PA system - suddenly flicked the Echoplex button/switch and this phenomenal electronic rush of echo and loop and 'phase-shift' [as I've read it called] filled the room and my head exploded in teenage joy and - here it comes again - awe. This was a sound to become more evident on 'Solid Air' and of course throughout later work. 'Inside Out' is the album that signalled the more experimental and jazzy elements of his inclinations and later work.

John Martyn's death in 2009 aged 60 was so utterly sad and it still upsets me, but what a life he will have lived! I recall being taken aback by the on-line and other music community's outpourings of grief and love for the man at the time: in that egocentric world of the massive fan I thought I was the only one who loved him so much. That arrogance wasn't a fully realised sentiment I say a little defensively [!], but I am just trying to be honest, and I was so moved so often when I read others' observations on how John had shaped their thoughts and feelings exactly as he did mine so early on and over the years. He was never a 'popular' artist, but the affection of John's fan-base is clearly more fundamental and permanent than that which is perhaps more superficially evident for other artists.

To finish on a more upbeat note, the disc I am still listening to which is mainly alternative mixes includes some of John's famous patter and this was always a hoot at gigs, certainly the early ones when I could understand what he was saying! This was so often with his great friend and musical partner Danny Thompson. To get an aural glimpse of this listen to 'Live at Leeds'.

As I come to a close writing this, I am listening to a demo track 'When It's Dark' that never made the album. What a beautiful song.