New old NME interview from 1975.

Meet the man they call The Bitterest Beard in Britain.
Yes, JOHN MARTYN is uptight. About almost everything. As usual. Or maybe it’s just his way. ROD McSHANE endures the onslaught.

EVEN THOUGH John Martyn will be taking a year off from gigging in Britain after his current tour ends this month, there won’t be any accusations of short-changing from the man’s considerable British following. He’s currently on his third tour of the year, and apart from that there’ve been numerous dates in Europe (including the Montreaux Jazz Festival), and the anti-climactic ‘end of the Rainbow’ gig.

Avid John fan Michael Rome was in no doubt what to call his superb new yacht!

“The “e” on the end of the name is my and John’s Leeds connection. I was born and bred in Leeds, “Live at Leeds” and the river Aire!!” Says Mike.

Solid Aire is moored in Plymouth but regularly visits Brixham and other South coast ports, so keep an eye open if you are in the area, who knows you may be invited aboard!

Beverley Martyn’s new album The Phoenix and the Turtle is due for release on 22 April 2014 on both CD and vinyl.

Here is the tracklisting-

1. Reckless Jane
2. Potter’s Blues
3. Going To Germany
4. Sweet Joy
5. Nighttime
6. Levee Breaks
7. Women & Malt Whisky
8. Mountain Hop
9. Jesse James

Described by Beverley as a very personal album, it features songs written throughout her entire career, from her very first song, Sweet Joy, to the previously unrecorded Nick Drake and Beverley Martyn song Reckless Jane which was started in 1974 when Nick Drake lived near to John and Beverley in Hampstead. “We started writing the song as a bit of a joke,” she says, “I couldn’t look at it for a long time after he died, but then finally I decided to finish it.”

In 2009, Gilles Serrigny asked one of the best french stringed-instrument makers to make a guitar. After John’s death, Gilles wanted a guitar to pay tribute to him and called the guitar Solid Air. There is an inlay of the Solid Air album cover on the head of the guitar and two salmon on the splint to celebrate John’s love of fishing and the water theme that is present in many of his songs including The River, Back Down To The River, Fisherman’s Dream etc.

What a fantastic looking guitar and a superb personal way to remember John.

Five years ago today (29th January 2009) the world lost the most innovative singer-songwriter and guitarist it had ever seen. We all miss ‘Our John’, in our own personal way, we miss our friend, but we are fortunate to have the wonderful legacy of music that John left us. An insight on the man himself, John shared his life with us through his music. Our hearts reach out to John’s loved ones and family, for their loss is so much greater than ours. So raise a glass to ‘Our John’, put your favourite album on and celebrate “the cool bit” – the music.

The Island Years

To whom do you recommend, with a straight face, an 18-disc box set? “Everyone”. Okay, thanks, that was easy.

Seriously, though, the truly-beyond-brilliant Mr lain McGeachy has historically gotten the short end of the stick when people speak of the British Folk Boom of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Nick Drake casts a very long shadow, and not just because of his imposing height. Martyn, were he here, would suggest that that is fair and just. I say no. I idolise Drake, yet I cannot think of him without thinking of John Martyn, and vice versa, even though their individual styles were very different.

Q Magazine review the 18 disc Island Years box set.

TURMOIL SPILL

Mammoth boxset charting the uncompromising highs and harrowing lows of the folk pioneer.

In January 2009, shortly after receiving an OBE for services to music, the former lain McGeachy died of pneumonia and kidney failure, aged just 60. With his prodigious capacity for drink and drugs (his heroin and acid periods ran concurrently), the car crash which fractured his neck and the burst cyst which led to his right leg being amputated below the knee, it’s a wonder John Martyn made it that far.