The Sapphire LP only gets a look in with Mad Dog Days but, if Martyn's current output is to be judged on this performance, then the sooner that album joins my collection the better. Quite simply, the best set I've seen so far this year.
25 May 1985
Richard Skinner: John Martyn, contemporary and fellow Island recording artist in those days, yes?
John Martyn: This is true, this is true.
RS: Did you know the man well?
JM: I did, yes. We lived very close to each other. He lived in one part of Hampstead, and I lived just up the road. Um, very quiet, very quiet lad. Extremely personable and charming, when necessary.
01 Jan 1985
John Martyn, you either love him or hate him. Nicholas Webb, an ardent fan, went along to the Dominion in Tottenham Court Road to see his latest set. Later Nick spoke to him backstage about his music and his new album Sapphire.
22 Dec 1984
Cosmic John Martyn at the Dominion a fortnight ago was the first time I'd seen this beer-swilling beat hippy since I snuck in the back of the Victoria Theatre as a schoolboy in 1975 and watched him workout with double bassist Danny Thompson and jazz drummer John Stevens.
I somehow lost track of John Martyn's recorded progress round One World so, with news of the excellence of his new album ringing in my ears, this was to have been a re-induction.
Once you get over the initial shock of a Judy Garland song, second track in, you'll rapidly realise this is the best John Martyn album since Grace & Danger.
Comparable in texture to much of 1980's Grace & Danger, this record burns slowly. Its evocative achievement is that of a marathon runner rather than the flash of a sprinter.
Contains Don't Want To Know in the vein of Live From London.
Might have been the gig from 15 November, too.
12 Nov 1984
[The interview took place at Keele University]
R. The new album marks your return to Island Records, uses Linn Drums and you credit it thanks to Robert Palmer - but he doesn't play on it.
Because so much of it hews close to the soulless soul shuffle of Compass Point, Sapphire could be mistaken for evidence of John Martyn coasting into the shallows of a career that looked irretrievably lost.
