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No Little Boy - Mesa R2 79057

6 Dec 1993
NPR National Public Radio
Andy Lyman

Guitarist John Martyn Revives His Own Sound

coverDecember 6, 1993 - The progressive rock stations of the late 1960s were good to Scottish guitarist John Martyn. Since that time, he's been known primarily to other guitar players, having faded from the airwaves. If Martyn is known beyond the world of musicians, it's for his song "May You Never," which was recorded by Eric Clapton. Now, Martyn is making something of a comeback by reviving his own sound.

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No Little Boy

New York, Bottom Line, 8 Sep 1993

8 Sep 1993
New York Times
Jon Pareles

Pop and Jazz in Review
By JON PARELES

John Martyn The Bottom Line

The blues is a touchstone for John Martyn. In the blues, he found music that transmutes pain into beauty, music that initiates select listeners into a secret world of loneliness and danger. But he didn't become one more blues imitator. Instead, he forged a highly individual style from British folk songs, jazz, soul and his own eccentricities: music with pinpoint syncopated vamps under hazy, free-form vocals, in songs that contemplate death and mourn lost love.

Martyn's Moments Make the Music

17 Dec 1992

Dave Hoekstra
Chicago Sun-Times

One of the great lines of the year tumbled out of the film Glengarry Glen Ross as Ricky Roma was peddling real estate. Played by Al Pacino, the spidery Roma looked deep into the eyes of a diffident client and said that everyone worries about the past and the future. But no one lives for the moment. You can't say that about John Martyn, whose mysterious career is full of passionate moments.

The Triumphant Return of John Martyn

01 Oct 1992

Lahri Bond
Dirty Linen #42

The voice on the other end of the telephone line is most certainly John Martyn's. The soft Glaswegian accent and the dark timbre which is Martyn's trademark is there, yet he seemed strangely disconnected. Oh no, I immediately thought. It is well known that Martyn struggled with alcohol and many other substances for years, but I thought those days were behind him. So why the strange distance in his hello, I mean it was four in the afternoon, after all!

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