28th June, John Martyn's birthday.
The stories are a myriad about the man, half of which you couldn't give any credence. It seems many have a John Martyn tale, either of loutish drunken behavior on the one side or to his personable generosity on the other.
But one thing is quite clear since his death in 2009 a large gap has been left in UK's music.
He'd had 4 decades of making his music a story that was deeply personal, "some people keep diaries, I make records." he said in the 1980's. A unique style of playing blended folk, jazz, blues, rock in way no one had done before or since. Live he would often use loop echoes, reverbs and phaser effects on the guitars and voice to the hypnotic soulful blues songs. A voice that was like the song style itself, blurred and atmospheric. His songs connected to both male and female such was the emotive content.
Martyn was also one of the few people who actually knew Nick Drake (see post) in the late 60's early 70's and writing what was to become one of his most well known songs as a tribute to him in 1973. Solid Air.
So no apologies here for having that track as a tribute to John Martyn. A powerful demonstration of Martyn's unique sound. From the 1973 album of the same name.
