Iain David McGeachy OBE, known professionally as John Martyn, was a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. Over a 40-year career, he released 23 studio albums, and received frequent critical acclaim. The Times described him as “an electrifying guitarist and singer whose music blurred the boundaries between folk, jazz, rock and blues”. Mentored by Hamish Imlach, Martyn began his professional musical career when he was 17, playing a fusion of blues and folk resulting in a distinctive style which made him a key figure in the British folk scene during the mid-1960s. He signed to Island Records in 1967 and released his first album, London Conversation, the same year. Released in 1968, his second album, The Tumbler, was moving towards jazz.
By 1970 Martyn had developed a wholly original and idiosyncratic sound: acoustic guitar run through a fuzzbox, phase shifter and Echoplex. This sound was first apparent on Stormbringer! released in February 1970. Stormbringer! was written and performed by Martyn and his then-wife Beverley, who had previously recorded solo as Beverely Kutner. Their second duo album, The Road to Ruin, was released in November 1970. Island Records felt that it would be more successful to market Martyn as a solo act and this was how subsequent albums were produced, although Beverley continued to make appearances as a backing singer as well as continuing as a solo artist herself.
Released in 1971, Bless the Weather was Martyn’s third solo album. The writing reflects their move from London to Hastings Old Town. When it was released it garnered his best reviews to date, and remains a firm favourite among fans, featuring such standards as “Head and Heart” and the title track. The album is predominantly acoustic, although it does feature Martyn’s first real ‘echoplex’ track in “Glistening Glyndebourne”.
In February 1973, Martyn released the album Solid Air, the title song a tribute to the singer-songwriter Nick Drake, a close friend and label-mate who would die in 1974 from an overdose of antidepressants. In 2009, a double CD Deluxe edition of Solid Air was released featuring unreleased songs and out-takes, and sleeve notes by Record Collector’s Daryl Easlea. On Bless the Weather and on Solid Air Martyn collaborated with jazz bassist Danny Thompson, with whom he proceeded to have a musical partnership which continued until his death.
Following the commercial success of Solid Air, later on in 1973 Martyn quickly recorded and released the experimental Inside Out, an album with emphasis placed on feel and improvisation rather than song structure. In 1975, he followed this with Sunday’s Child, a more song-based collection that includes “My Baby Girl” and “Spencer the Rover”, which are references to his young family. Martyn subsequently described this period as ‘very happy’. In September 1975, he released a live album, Live at Leeds — Martyn had been unable to persuade Island to release the record, and resorted to selling individually signed copies by mail from his home in Hastings. Live at Leeds features Danny Thompson and drummer John Stevens. In 2010, a 2CD Deluxe version of Live at Leeds was released, and it was discovered that not all of the songs on the original album were from the Leeds concert. After releasing Live at Leeds, Martyn took a sabbatical, including a visit to Jamaica, spending time with reggae producer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.
Martyn’s marriage broke down at the end of the 1970s and “John hit the self destruct button” (although other biographers, including The Times obituary writer, attribute the break-up of his marriage to his already being addicted to drink and drugs). In her autobiography, Beverley also alleges protracted domestic violence. Out of this period, described by Martyn as “a very dark period in my life”, came the album Grace and Danger. Released in October 1980, the album had been held up for a year by Chris Blackwell. He was a close friend of John and Beverley, and found the album too openly disturbing to release. Only after intense and sustained pressure from Martyn did Blackwell agree to release the album. Commenting on that period, Martyn said, “I was in a dreadful emotional state over that record. I was hardly in control of my own actions. The reason they finally released it was because I freaked: Please get it out! I don’t give a damn about how sad it makes you feel—it’s what I’m about: the direct communication of emotion. Grace and Danger was very cathartic, and it really hurt.”
Phil Collins played drums and sang backing vocals on Grace and Danger and subsequently played drums on and produced Martyn’s next album, Glorious Fool, in 1981. Martyn left Island records in 1981, and recorded Glorious Fool and Well Kept Secret for WEA achieving his first Top 30 album. Martyn released The Apprentice in 1990 and Cooltide in 1991 for Permanent Records, and reunited with Phil Collins for No Classic tracks (1993) which featured rerecorded versions of some of his classic tracks.
To mark Martyn’s 60th birthday, Island released a 4CD boxed set, Ain’t No Saint in September 2008. The set includes unreleased studio material and rare live recordings. Martyn was appointed OBE in the 2009 New Year Honours and died a few weeks later. Martyn had recorded new material before he died and his final studio album, Heaven and Earth, was completed and released posthumously in May 2011. The sleeve note says, “all the tracks on this recording were kept as John wished — in their entirety”.
