John Martyn celebrated twenty years as a performer in 1986 and what a celebration it was! Piece By Piece, John's fourteenth studio album was released in February on vinyl and CD, followed by a strictly limited CD release with bonus songs, a 12 inch Classic John Martyn single and, of course, the worlds first commercially available CD single Classic John Martyn in digi pack format!

If the The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) scheduled all its footage of John Martyn, his fans could be forgiven for thinking that their Christmases had all come at once! Classic 1970s programmes such as The Onedin Line, Multi-coloured Swap Shop, Animal Magic with Johnny Morris, The Generation Game, Morecambe and Wise, Blue Peter with John Noakes, It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Mastermind punctuated by rock, folk, blues, reggae and jazz from John, now there’s a thought! Luckily you don’t have to wait that long, Christmas is here thanks to Universal Music. John Martyn at the BBC; we have even removed the other programmes! There are three concerts and bonus material abounds in Extra Features.

JOHN MARTYN

John Martyn loves seaports and he's always lived close to the seaside. Back in 1975 the singer and family lived by the sea as well -in Hastings, East Sussex. When the 27-year-old Martyn came to Bremen/ Germany on September 17th, 1975, to play his second-ever concert in Germany, he also came to one of Germany's biggest harbours. And he performed for an audience that was open to listen. Open like the sea, in fact, not caring one iota about pigeon-holing his music. People simply wanted to hear one of the UK's most notorious musical talents.

John met Al Stewart (Year Of The Cat) on the London folk club circuit. Stewart was already well known, being contracted to CBS Records and having released a single The Elf. In June 1968 he took to the stage to introduce John at Les Cousins and subsequently produced The Tumbler, which was recorded at Regent Sound, Denmark Street in London’s Soho, on 11th July 1968 and released in December the same year. John’s previous album, London Conversation (IMCD319), had been well received however The Tumbler documents an early step forward in his musical progression.