John Martyn

John Martyn: Grace & Danger

by John Kelman
January 3, 2015

John Martyn Grace & Danger Island Records1980 Today's Rediscovery is the late, great singer/songwriter John Martyn's classic Grace & Danger. Martyn emerged, in the mid-'60s, as a singer/songwriter with surprising facility on guitar and a pure, emotive voice. At a time when bands like Fairport Convention were exploring the meeting place of rock attitude and British traditionalism, Martyn's early recordings, like his 1967 Island Records debut London Conversation, were steadfastly acoustic and ...

Various Artists: Johnny Boy Would Love This…A Tribute to John Martyn

by John Kelman
August 13, 2011

With the release of Heaven and Earth (Hole in the Rain, 2011), it seems that the world has heard the last of John Martyn, who passed away in 2009 a few months shy of his 61st birthday. This most personal of singer/songwriters has left a remarkable legacy, and while Johnny Boy Would Love This...A Tribute to John Martyn covers 30 of his best songs, it still doesn't hit all of them, speaking to a rare prolificacy in Martyn's first two ...

John Martyn: Heaven and Earth

by John Kelman
May 28, 2011

In a world filled with happiness and hurt, there's a gaping chasm between those that are aware and those that aren't. When John Martyn passed away months before his 60th birthday in 2009, the world lost one of the most painfully confessional singer/songwriters of the past half century. “Some people keep diaries," said Phil Cunningham in a 2007 BBC2 TV series, “John makes records." That Martyn could sing “Hurt in Your Heart," from his heart-wrenching breakup record, Grace & Danger ...

John Martyn Tribute Album: David Gray, Beck, Phil Collins

Source: JamBase
August 2, 2011

THE CURE'S ROBERT SMITH, VETIVER, SNOW PATROL, BETH ORTON, MORCHEEBA, AND MORE ALSO FEATURED In the late '60s, the late British guitarist and songwriter John Martyn broke ground by leaping from acoustic folk into highly successful experiments with tape delay, wild recording scenarios, and jazz-inspired arrangements. He became a cult figure among British musicians. A list of his admirers reads like a who's-who of rock, pop, and even trip hop: Eric Clapton, The Band's Levon Helm, Lee “Scratch" Perry, The ...
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Sat Eye Candy: R.I.P. John Martyn

Source: JamBase
February 1, 2009

WE BID FAREWELL TO ONE OF THE HEAVIEST ROMANTIC SOULS MUSIC HAS EVER KNOWN

Time after time, I held it Just to watch it die Line after line, I loved it Just to watch it cry

Bless the weather that brought you to me Curse the storm that takes you away

In music we sometimes stumble upon an unknown country, fresh landscape of such varied, wonderful terrain that one knows ...
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John Martyn Respected British Singer-Songwriter Dies

Source: Michael Ricci
January 30, 2009

John Martyn, 60, a British singer-songwriter whose soulful songs were covered by Eric Clapton and others, died Thursday, according to a statement on Martyn’s official website. It did not give a cause of death for the musician, who lived in Ireland.

A skilled guitarist and earthy vocalist influenced by folk, blues and jazz, Martyn performed with -- and was admired by -- musicians including Clapton, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, and Phil Collins.

Martyn was born Iain David McGeachy near London ...
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John Martyn's Smooth Scotch Blend of Folk and Jazz

Source: Michael Ricci
October 12, 2008

In the late 1960s it was a novel, far-reaching idea when folk-rooted guitarists in the United States and England began toying with the harmonies and syncopations of jazz. (Now such hybrids are taken for granted in the music of Norah Jones or Grizzly Bear.)

One of the most idiosyncratic British innovators, the 60-year-old Scottish guitarist, singer and songwriter John Martyn, made his first New York appearance in more than a decade with a brief yet heartening set at ...
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