There is a saying of The Bedouin Tribe. "We pitch our tents far apart, so that our hearts remain close." Since the mid-seventies John and myself have had our tents very much apart, but the friendship developed during the three years we had together has remained a strong bond.
John Martyn was born in 1948 into a Scots musical family; the only son of two light opera singers who became separated shortly after his birth. Brought up by a close relative, most of his childhood was spent in urban Glasgow, but every weekend his father used to take him into the countryside, and every year he spent his holidays with his mother on houseboats touring the riverways of Southern England.
He's got all the whiskey - Has he got the right?- not for me!
A hard bloody slog, John Martyn would be the first to tell you. It has been real progress, though. No ruts. No comfortable niches. No standing still. Just look at the album jackets. There's the cherubic eighteen year-old folkie picking away on a London rooftop in 1967, the bearded seer with electrical storms raging inside in his head a few years later, and, later still, the suited man who would be an '80s rock star like his friends Eric and Phil.
The beginnings of John Martyn's career are described in the sleeve note to his first album 'London Conversation' and continue on the 'Stormbringer!' LP. Both are now available on CD.
John's fourth album 'The Road To Ruin' had introduced Danny Thompson on bass who joined from Pentangle.
The beginnings of John Martyn's varied career are described in the sleeve note to the first album 'London Conversation' which is now available on CD.
In 1969, John met and married a singer from Coventry, Beverley Kutner, who was making records at the time with producer Joe Boyd. Boyd was the UK A&R man at Elektra, he ran his own Witchseason production company that included The Incredible String Band, an outfit linked with John Martyn in his early days.
John Martyn was born in 1948 into a Scots musical family of two light opera singers who separated shortly after his birth. Brought up by a close relative, most of his childhood was spent in urban Glasgow: weekends were spent with his father in the countryside and yearly holidays were spent on houseboats with his mother in the South of England.
John Martyn is unique: an artist who has been held in the highest esteem since his earliest recordings which now date back over twenty years. A writer, musician and singer who has constantly spurned trend and defied the rules, John Martyn has instead charted his own eclectic course through the oft troubled waters of contemporary music.
Where do you begin to describe such an enigmatic personality as John Martyn's, whose long career has been founded on an enviable reputation as a performer with a seemingly insatiable appetite for playing live?
A John Martyn performance is always a special occasion. For instance there was the time I watched him give a merry, impromptu recital on the grand piano in the lobby of the Albany hotel in Glasgow.
