CD review: Johnny Boy Would Love This ... A Tribute to John Martyn

ALTERNATIVE | BLUES | JAZZ | FOLK

John Martyn may have been underappreciated by the American music-buying public, but his fellow musicians certainly show him some love on the rich treasure trove of covers “Johnny Boy Would Love This ... A Tribute to John Martyn.”

Thirty artists cover 30 of the groundbreaking British songwriter-guitarist's songs on this two-CD set, which also contains a DVD featuring interviews with a number of the contributing artists, performance videos and rare live performances by Martyn himself.

Beginning in the late '60s, Martyn made the transition from an acoustic folk artist to electrified studio experimentalist exploring a broader palette of musical languages including blues, jazz, rock and even psychedelia, earning the admiration of a star-studded list of players from all walks of music for his distinctive percussive style of playing and his emotionally deep-cutting, deceptively mellow-sounding tunes.

The acoustic alternative fringe is represented here by Vetiver on the melancholy “Go Easy” and Beth Orton on the yearning (and similarly titled) “Go Down Easy.”

From the world of alt-pop comes the hushed orchestral beauty and lyrical hopefulness of Snow Patrol's take on “May You Never,” the spacey and soaring reading of “Small Hours” by The Cure's Robert Smith, and Beck's mesmerizing and meditative piano, acoustic guitar and mellotron treatment of “Stormbringer.”

The bluesmen are heard from on the moody, tremolo-textured reworking of “Glorious Fool” by Clarence Fountain and Sam Butler of Blind Boys of Alabama, and young Joe Bonamassa's nimble-fingered, ricky-ticky interpretation of “The Easy Blues.” With tracks by acts as diverse as Emperors of Wyoming, the Swell Season, Sonia Dada and Phil Collins, there's something for just about everyone here. The eclectic Martin would have loved this, indeed.

— Gene Triplett

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