For the few who attended the Bijou Cafe's Monday evening show, two more unusual performers could not have been presented. Both John Martyn and Essra Mohawk have unique styles and both have achieved at least cult following over the years.
For those of you who do not know, let me merely say this: John Martyn is Britain's number one singer/ songwriter. Absolutely. Without doubt.
I sincerely believe that there isn't a singer-songwriter in Britain who can hold a candle to him in terms of innovation and imagination.
IT WAS about November when John Martyn announced that he'd be taking a year off from live appearances in Britain.
It wasn't believable at the time; and this wasn't the first gig since the itchy-fingered Martyn's pronouncement. But the small steep-tiered Open theatre in the heart of Regent's Park on Sunday evening must be just about the ideal setting for Martyn's music.
By STEPHEN TURNER
John Martyn's concert at the Carlisle Hotel may have been his last in this country but it certainly will not have been one of his most memorable.
NORTH LONDON POLY
STUDENTS MAKE the most easy-going audiences a performer could wish for.
CROYDON
THERE AREN'T many musicians who can carry off a set barely ninety minutes long, almost thirty of them between-numbers chat, without leaving an audience feeling short-changed. Martyn's Croydon concert did, and managed much more. It was one of the most completely satisfying gigs I've attended in a long time.
JOHN MARTYN is unlikely to ever sell out a concert at the Albert Hall at six quid a seat, and one couldn't really envisage him entertaining the daughter of an American President backstage after a gig at Madison Square Gardens.
Yes, that's right. 'Koss' turned up for the final couple of numbers. But there had been ten John Martyn song workouts prior to that, you know, with his voice tumbling along like some kind of crazed tumbleweed and harmonizing with Danny Thompson's rolling stand-up bass and his own staccato guitar patterns.
THE sound of running water in a pitch black hall. The lights go up and John Martyn in a grubby raincoat with his back to the audience, looks round in surprise, pretending he has been caught in the middle of answering nature's call.
