Has there been a thread about John Martyn?

middle of the day and the whole town looks pissed

listening to 1987's piece by piece for the first time, thought i was in for an ugly horror show after the first track but some of it is very nice. even if at points it does sound like john has wandered in on some bloke playing around with a dx7 and decided to sing along.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A903GGnzgyw

I still haven't warmed to this guy at all. Glorious Fool still sounds wispy.

his best work is with phil collins tbh

Echoplex-era FTW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wJevkA7_O4

one or two songs on the new Slowdive really sound like him

You need to listen to "One World", Alfred

omg what alfred

not even "small hours"?

One World is revelatory

Gonna give this revelatory album a spin in a few minutes. Stay tuned!

his 70s solo albums are really where it's at -- Bless the Weather - Solid Air - Inside Out - Sunday's Child - One World. If those don't do it for ya, he's probably not for you.

Solid Air and One World are holy. Can't imagine anyone not falling for the former in particular.
"Small Hours" is one his most gorgeous moments but may I dare saying that Robert Smith's cover of a few years back might even top it.

The small bit of vocals in small hours is the best thing ever

he is really great

bless the weather has the field beat for worst cover/best album
maybe some manuel gottsching/ashra competition but it's a contender at least

although i do not like sugar lump

there is probably a thread for that

thread for not liking sugar lump

i learned last night that my friend's dad, an older musician, knew martyn, anne briggs and bert jansch o_O

Glorious Fool still sounds wispy.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 9 June 2017

Is this the first John Martyn album you've tried? Its an odd choice.

I mostly love 'Bless the Weather', it was the first JM album that clicked with me but, yeah, "Sugar Lump" and the artwork are not so great.

I sympathise with Alfred. On paper, Martyn is exactly my sort of thing, but he just hasn't clicked with me. I own Solid Air and Stormbringer

xxpost Jon, please grill your friend's father (for info, not for lunch)! Haven't really followed him, but agree that Solid Air and One World should convert the infidels if anything will. Also maybe Road To Ruin, with aforementioned wife Beverly---who also sounds good on John Renbourn's early 60s gypsy stash, Attic Tapes, finally out a couple years ago, and I carried on about it on the post-Fahey thread---ditto about the very recent album Renbourn's ancient colleague Wizz Jones did with fellow vet Pete Berryman and son Simeon Jones. The most specific Martyn connection I'm aware of on that 'un is a song inspired by the (or a) night Jones and and JM found themselves in deep freezing water.

the tune "give us a ring" is my favorite john & bev track. the rest are kind of dull imo! i love that song though.

i'm a pretty big fan of "John the Baptist" off of Stormbringer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE_nbrW5cMU

Is this the first John Martyn album you've tried? Its an odd choice.

― Well bissogled trotters (Michael B)

I own Inside Out and Well Kept Secret.

It's a sweet little mystery

hello! where exactly should one begin with john martyn?

I started with "Road To Ruin" then went to "One World" and then I was hooked forever. Love him.

I like Bless the Weather, Solid Air, Inside Out, Live At Leeds, One World and the solo with Echoplex Battle of Medway. That was recorded in 73 I think and put out about 10 years back.

Don't like his treatment of Beverly.

"Musically it was just dreadful. It was appalling at that point. It was dominated by real second-ratedness. All the great Sixties heroes had disintegrated into drugs or to nothing. I stopped listening to English music, except for John Martyn who would bring out a good album every year in that period." - Tony Wilson on the years before punk, quoted in John Robb's Punk Rock: An Oral History.

I'd add Grace and Danger to Stevolende's list. Sweet Little Mysteries: The Island Anthology is a good primer.

the tune "give us a ring" is my favorite john & bev track. the rest are kind of dull imo! i love that song though.

Written by Paul Wheeler for Nick Drake, iirc. It would fit quite well into Bryter Layter.

Can I just put in a word here for Oscar Jerome, who has a SE London John Martyn vibe going:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04bTf2PbMqY

Bless the Weather and Solid Air are probably the best intros but One World is his masterpiece

xp - huh! did not know that. might explain why i like that song better.

listened to One World this morning -- what a weird, brilliant record.

I swear by everything from London Conversation through One World.

Solid Air was my first record of his and I can't imagine a better introduction.

I've come to appreciate Live at Leeds (in both incarnations) and Inside Out the most out of all that stuff, but in that period I mentioned above, he put down one of the most consistent runs in recorded music, I'd reckon.

And he's clearly been hugely influential.

...on John Bonnamossa

sorry... the acoustic portion of the JB show I encountered a few years back REALLY made me think of john martyn

Who's John Bonnamossa?

My favorite Martyn performance bar none:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&noapp=1&v=lE6i_qnoAgo

My favourite live performance ever I think

that guitar tone is extremely metal

love it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDMWVr9k5R8

Uncle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYLVM560Fok

One World got me in the last week of December.

I love that Lester Bangs story about being on a music biz junket to Jamaica in the mid-70s, and while the other hacks are hanging round the pool smoking weed at the Holiday Inn, he gets a ride into Kingston -- against everyone's advice -- to go record shopping. After an hour or two he goes for a drink and is surprised to see another long-haired, bearded white guy sitting at the corner of the bar, only to find it's John Martyn.

I've prob. misremembered the details, but it just says a lot about what I love about JM; that he was from this folky background, but so hip -- for want of a better word -- to what was going on in jazz, reggae, dub, ambient etc. Not sure who/what would be the equivalent these days.

It says a lot about how he liked a bevvy too.