Concert review

Glasgow, The Garage, 23 Jul 1999

26 Jul 1999
Glasgow Herald
Rob Adams

John Martyn,
The Garage, Glasgow

What a long strange voyage these past 30 years have been for John Martyn-watchers. From boss acoustic fingerpicking through free- wheeling jazz, reggae and hip-hop experiments, the good ship McGeachie (his real name) has sailed, with occasional becalmed moments but with the interest always sustained by the mystery of where journey's end might be.

London, Forum, 20 Jun 1996

22 Jun 1996
The Guardian
Robin Denselow

And The Band played on...

They started out like an efficient bar-room band, with a burst of R&B and a dip into the back catalogue, all given heavy-handed treatment thanks to their second drummer but enlivened, briefly, by the mysterious arrival on stage of John Martyn.

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.

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