Live In Concert At The Cambridge Folk Festival
Although he started out as a folkie, the notion of John Martyn playing a folk festival in 1985 borders on the absurd. But this was the Cambridge folk Festival and by 1985, his thoroughly absorbent sound had soaked in jazz, blues, rock and dub reggae, as had the festival itself. Meanwhile, his own singular musical legacy - those trademark slurred, emotionally supersaturated vocals and endlessly reverberating echoplex guitar stylings could only be categorised as Martyn-esque. Still, there's no hint of resentment from an often deliriously enthusiastic Cambridge Folk Festival audience on this July evening here, no cries of "Judas!" as he introduces an electric band whose playing, while virtuoso, is in rich and shiny keeping with Eighties pop/rock sensibilities.