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Sample Track 1:
"Glorious Fool (Clarence Fountain and Sam Butler)" from Johnny Boy Would Love This...A Tribute to John Martyn Disc 1
Sample Track 2:
"Bless The Weather (The Emperors of Wyoming)" from Johnny Boy Would Love This...A Tribute to John Martyn Disc 1
Sample Track 3:
"May You Never (Snow Patrol)" from Johnny Boy Would Love This...A Tribute to John Martyn Disc 2
Sample Track 4:
"Walk To The Water (John Smith)" from Johnny Boy Would Love This...A Tribute to John Martyn Disc 2
Layer 2
Album Mention

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Crawdaddy! Magazine, Album Mention >>

What Makes a Legend: John Martyn
Denise Sullivan
published on June 8, 2011

Classic Track: “May You Never”

John Martyn’s career spanned over four decades and 20 albums; his unique guitar styles and experiments with the fuzzbox, Echoplex and phase shifting were noted by Eric Clapton and David Gilmour; he was embraced by the next generation of his fellow musicians too, from Bristol trip-hoppers, Yankee freak folkers, and all-star indie-rockers like Beck. Martyn’s acoustic and electric music took in reggae and jazz, making him difficult to categorize, though his beginnings on the London scene that spawned Fairport Convention and Nick Drake were decidedly folk rock. Born in England, and raised mostly in Glasgow, his accent was thick as mud while his voice was dirty sweet. He died in 2009 of complications from pneumonia.

Essential Listening: The 1973 album Solid Air, a cornerstone in the house that folk-jazz built, features not only the twinkling “May You Never,” but the title song, a shout-out to Martyn’s friend Nick Drake (Martyn’s wife at the time, Beverly, was also a friend and collaborator of his); The Martyns’ albums Stormbringer! And The Road to Ruin (both released in 1970) are also crucial, Joe Boyd-produced British folk rock albums. The Chris Blackwell-produced One World (1977) features reggae giant Lee “Scratch” Perry and Traffic’s Steve Winwood; known not only for musical culture clashing, it’s notable for its use of ambient sound on the tracks.

And if you like that, you might like: The 1973 experimental work, Inside Out (it seems like Beck studied it before making his own Sea Change). The box set, Ain’t No Saint, captures the breadth and depth of Martyn’s whole career, while The Church With One Bell finds him covering the blues of Lightnin’ Hopkins and Reverend Gary Davis alongside trippier contemporary works by Portishead and Dead Can Dance. His final album, Heaven and Earth, completed post-humously and released last month, includes contributions by longtime friend, Phil Collins. Uncut called it “Flawed, undeniably, but rudely, robustly alive.” Johnny Boy Would Love This, a tribute album to be released this summer, features Snow Patrol, Beth Orton,  The Swell Season, Bombay Bicycle Club, and Robert Smith of the Cure doing Martyn. And, oh yes: “Stormbringer” by Beck.

Watch the action then: “One World”

And again: “Couldn’t Love You More”

 06/08/11 >> go there
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