John Martyn passes away aged 60

A shame you never saw any of his early performances or met the man PMN.

Ahh, I know. I’ve just been saying to a friend there arn’t many musicians who’s music I like I’d actually genuinely like to meet, but I would have absolutely loved to sit and have a chat with John Martyn. Funnily enough, I’d like to have talked about things other than music. I think he’d have some outlooks on life we could all learn a hell of a lot from.

Paul

A shame you never saw any of his early performances or met the man PMN.
There are some performances on Youtube including an early 70’s version of ‘I’d Rather be the Devil’ which looks to have come off the ‘Whistle Test’.
It was quite something to see this figure up on stage with his sanded down Martin accoustic producing all these incredible sounds via his Synthovox thingy whatsit tape loop device or whatever it was, no clever digital electronics in those days.
We saw him at Nottingham Uni once and the floor was shaking with the incredible sounds he was producing, we couldn’t believe it wasn’t pre-recorded, but no way, it was just him, Danny Thompson even cleared off for a pint and left him to it.
My legacy from him was from one of our conversations, ‘Stick to Martin light gauge strings old son’, I still use them to this day.
He did produce an album called ‘Live at Leeds’ which captures those early live performances. Island Records wouldn’t distribute it and only a few copies were sent out from his house.
When I met him at the studio he promised to send me a copy and promptly forgot, it eventually arrived after quite a bit of reminding, hence the great signature on the back, I wonder how many copies of this album are about.

No sleeve notes or anything, just a plain white cover.

He’ll be sorely missed.

I have to admit, I’ve only just discovered John Martyn’s music today but I feel like a light has been switched on somewhere and my little world is brighter than it was before. It’s some of the most expressive and heartfelt music I’ve ever heard. A truely rare gem of a songwriter and musician and someone who has left the musical world a better place.

He played a concert at Leeds Grand theatre only around 10 miles from me last year. If only I’d have discovered him a year earlier. 😡

May he Rest In Peace. 🙁

Paul

I, too, had the privilege of seeing John Martyn playing live in his prime.

A sad day. 🙁

Did anybody see this underrated musical genius in his heyday, I saw him twice in the 70’s around the time of the immortal ‘Solid Air’ album, I was also lucky enough to sit in on a very contraversial interview he did at the Radio Nottingham studios.
For those unfamiliar with his performances I believe he features on Transatlantic Sessions, BBC4, 7:30, Friday evening.

John Martyn RIP