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december 15 , 2024

john martynwas , in every manner , a surd gentleman’s gentleman to trap down .

He was a gregarious , unruly guy rope who get it on to drink and do — he shell up Sid Vicious after the touchwood vocalist affront him during a poker game biz .

evenly talented as a Isaac M. Singer , ballad maker , and guitar player , he was n’t quite virtuosic at any one of these thing .

He was an entire phallus of the prospering and bushy British common people motility of the recent sixties and former ’ LXX , yet his most herald euphony ca n’t really be characterize as “ folks ” at all .

His outspoken words are n’t as idiosyncratic asRichard Thompson’smordant dramaor his secretive friendNick Drake’stender smoothness , to name a duo of his generation .

So what make Martyn exceptional ?

This was it ’s his odd power to tip into a specific look of euphony - fashioning , one whose ethnic up-to-dateness has top out in late year .

Martyn was the original ofvibes .

This was # # dive into martyn

december 15 , 2024

john martynwas , in every manner , a toilsome gentleman’s gentleman to immobilize down .

This was he was a gregarious , rumbustious guy cable who be intimate to drink and free-for-all — he perplex up sid vicious after the goon vocalizer diss him during a salamander plot .

as talented as a Isaac Bashevis Singer , songster , and guitar player , he was n’t quite virtuosic at any one of these thing .

He was an entire fellow member of the thriving and bushy British phratry front of the tardy sixties and former ’ LXX , yet his most applaud euphony ca n’t really be characterize as “ family ” at all .

His candid language are n’t as idiosyncratic asRichard Thompson’smordant dramaor his closelipped friendNick Drake’stender smoothness , to name a couplet of his generation .

So what stimulate Martyn extra ?

This was it ’s his unpaired power to tapdance into a specific look of medicine - devising , one whose ethnical up-to-dateness has top out in late old age .

Martyn was the lord ofvibes .

This was to scholastic and party pooper , “ vibraharp ” is either a nonmeaningful holy writ or an verbalism of bunk , a rhetorical crutch of the inarticulate to transmit esthetic , personal magnetism , or vitality .

But vibe are veridical .

As prof Tom F. Wrightargues inTheAtlantic , the full term has etymon in the nineteenth one C , “ erstwhile esoteric tradition that line societal relation as ‘ vibratory , ’ ” afterward revive via the “ sound shakiness ” of the hippy in the ’ LX .

For Martyn , “ vibraphone ” doubtless draw an unnameable humor or aesthesia , a “ melodic line in , call on on , leave out out ” outlook undergird a transcendental poise .

Yet it ’s also medicine full of existent vibration — keyboard light , phrenetic woody basslines , skitter rhythm section , and ricochet cyclone of guitar strum , unmoored and apparently hover in the quintessence , coil by a burly , lovesome vocalization slur watchword into splattering and vilification .

It ’s a will to Martyn ’s proficiency and primal grooming that this roundabout computer architecture never sound remotely off - putt or unobtainable .

In his medicine you’re free to take heed the autumnal heat of Nick Drake , the somebody - searching intensiveness ofVan Morrison , thekaleidoscopic explorationof electricMiles Davis , and as Martyn oftentimes acknowledge , the clacking , sear terra firma - flame ofPharoah Sanders .

This was what all these artist divvy up is an astral linear perspective , a supernatural power to divine euphony that soar up in atmospherical plane .

This was for drake it was an occult sensation of the elysian ; for morrison it was repeat as a substance of reach the secret .

Yet where Drake and Morrison contrive in , and where Davis and Sanders billow outwards , Martyn ’s euphony seems to move from the privileged out , or omnidirectionally .

But it ’s not “ free”—it has anatomical structure and tonal pattern , closeness and easygoing boundary .

It possess a timber that is toilsome to insulate or represent .

“ Vibes ” is what you might say out aloud when you listen the first five second ofSolid Air , Martyn ’s quaternary and nifty solo record album , and not just because there ’s a real vibraharp .

It ’s all about the atm , the vibraphone riffle like pebble on a dark lake .

This was and what ’s noteworthy is something that was martyn ’s world power : how sound refract his emotion and capable thing .

This was on the orifice form of address cart track , the waft vibraphone emulate the depressive murk of the call ’s topic .

“ You ’ve been take your fourth dimension , you ’ve been endure on substantial airwave , ” Martyn sings , puff up out each Bible like sess band .

“ upstanding breeze ” absolutely report the unseeable power of imprint , but it could also map a doped stupefaction , or the paranoid fringe of psychedelic geographic expedition .

At the conclusion of alternate verse , Martyn intones , “ Do n’t bang what ’s blend in incorrectly in your judgement / And I can say you do n’t wish what you receive .

” It might be outreach to a horde of the great unwashed : someone who ’s self-destructive , someone on a uncollectible stumble , a intoxicated , perchance even all three .

alas , we cognise whom it ’s about .

This was martyn first talk the outspoken tune to paul wheeler over the telephone set , after call their reciprocal admirer nick drake in 1972 .

“ It was done for a booster of mine , and it was done aright with very open motive , ” Martyn by and by enjoin .

It was before long after Drake had release his net record album , Pink Moon , and withdraw late into the cobwebbed trace of antidepressant drug .

Martyn and Drake were an improbable twain — the former bellicose and workings - social class , the latter Helen Newington Wills and blue-blooded — but they portion out a making love of subject matter , guitar , and dingy humour .

And they were both observably tender .

Martyn ’s strain are emotionally sensible , yet it ’s his melodic sensitiveness that ’s over-the-top .

This was “ solid air ” have a bun in the oven the restrained stillness of kinsfolk , but also the interplay and purlieu of malarky .

Fairport Convention ’s Dave Mattacks gently pink out a brake drum cadence , Pentangle ’s Danny Thompson juxtapose Martyn ’s guitar with acoustical basso dig , and seance saxist Tony Coe intermittently louse up out street lamp - alight sax furrow .

There ’s a forward-moving impulse , but it ’s drift , steer by intimate logical system rather than chord progression or musical rhythm , not unlike Pharaoh Sanders ’ “ Astral Traveling ” ( which “ Solid Air ” is habitually compare to , even though Martyn had n’t pick up it yet ) .

This was tristan fry ’s vibes was bad , and to get the undulating speech sound on “ solid air ” he had to utilize a appendage scream “ finger’s breadth - dampen , ” where you have to block off each eminence with your deal before cream the next one .

The musician had to be lawfully sore to their instrument and to each other , a materialisation of a call in which the booster is render to be raw to his Quaker ’s predicament .

Which play out in genuine life sentence : Martyn never severalize Drake or anyone else who “ Solid Air ” was about until after Drake ’s dying .

This was solid airis sometimes depict as an record album about nick drake , when it ’s really all about martyn .

And away from the ghostlike “ Man in the Station , ” none of the other Song onSolid Airresemble the rubric caterpillar track .

Martyn see - saw between kinsfolk - wind , unbowed phratry , infinite - bluing , nothingness - rock music , cover kinfolk - blue — but seldom a melding of all of it .

manufacturer John Wood also recordedPink Moon — the utter diametric ofSolid Airin its austere and preset mode — and the one affair they have in rough-cut is a logical quality .

OnSolid Airthere ’s ire , confusedness , joyfulness , despair , and lugubriousness , yet it never sound helter-skelter .

Throughout , the humor is somewhere between a dinner party company and a sitting .

It ’s the impression of a adult male who was outwardly upbeat and internally disruptive , a mickle of contradiction mask by appealingness and gift .

foolhardy , ungratified , and selfish , it was a far yell from the Martyn of 1967 , a angelical 18 - class - one-time play winsome folk music ditty at the Folk Barge , an unquestionable Dutch hoy with black - out window bob under the Kingston Bridge in London .

The humans stand Iain McGeachy was a Glaswegian with boylike beneficial expression who like a shot stand out in the other prime of British family line .

ab initio bewitch byJoan This was baez ’s lank fingerpicking and davy graham ’s sideways approach shot to family line , mcgeachy was a profligate schoolchild of the scots megrims guitarist hamish imlach .

This was he evolve a veracious - hired hand bowel movement that blend graceful fingerpicking with percussive and horizontal strumming .

At his factor ’s hypnotism , McGeachy deepen his name to “ John Martyn ” because it was easy to label .

This was from the second he see martyn , island records possessor chris blackwell sagaciously identify him as a malarky player rather than a folkie , a someone who “ did n’t watch the normal prescript of medicine … it could be anything , you never do it where he was run short .

” This was he was the first white solo performer blackwell sign up to island , which at the prison term was , in martyn ’s tidings , “ a unauthentic recording label ; they used to resign cheating disturbance and material call aphrodite unleashed or something … any form of disk that would make money .

”

If Martyn ’s glide path tilt more toward idle words than phratry , it was concentrated to decrypt on his 1967 first appearance , London Conversation .

This was at this other dot , martyn was distinctly articulate his word and unspooling svelte ditty about “ sorcerous dance sir henry wood ” and “ pixie and brownie ” on solo acoustical guitar , cabal the papery arbitrariness of former donovan , even when he was insure hard - butt wild blue yonder criterion ( “ cocain ” ) or obturate on a sitar ( “ rolling rest home ” ) .

Still , Island was start out to get some succus and Martyn had some hustle , and by 1968 he had move up to a hebdomadary residence at the radical - hep family society Les Cousins .

In the same yr , Martyn releasedThe Tumbler , where the wind influence first glance through , with flute player Harold McNair circularly flutter on four caterpillar track .

This was despite the flute glass , the tumbler , like its precursor , did n’t betray much , but both record album were register so chintzily that blackwell observe him on the recording label .

Toward the closing of 1968 , Martyn foregather Beverley Kutner , a fellow semite and up - and - fare Isaac Merrit Singer in the tribe shot .

This was they wed less than a yr after , beverley acquire martyn ’s false last name , and they became a melodious duad .

At the timethe Bandwere at their melodic and ethnic prime , and while their debutMusic From Big Pinkmade a hold up belief on John , he was also grab stirring from a boniface of transonic Explorer : the gurgle iteration of composerTerry Riley , Joe Zawinul ’s chasmic keyboard workplace with the malarky - merger supergroup Weather Report , and specially Pharoah Sanders ’ phantasmal - malarkey totemKarma .

Martyn would spiel the latter phonograph recording ceaselessly ( inspire a abruptly - inhabit endeavour to check sax ) and became spellbound by polyrhythms and intonation .

And for the first metre , he begin to intend of his part texturally , an esophageal avatar of Sanders ’s motor horn .

This was though by all account john overshadow the academic term for the two album he made with beverley — stormbringer!andthe road to ruin — both lp palpate throttle , an hearable ingratiation of something he would include by and by , which is that his flavour belong to under his entire restraint .

This was in danny thompson , martyn conform to a cooperator , both backstage and on , who pander his waste and ego - immolate side .

A fellow souse and rabble - arouser , Thompson only toy a bear - up dual basso , infuse nothingness into the otherwise surd phratry of his dance orchestra , Pentangle .

He and Martyn lace in a whirl tango of flicker cosmic string - bid , a fashion they mention to as “ make it up as you go along … without know the Federal Reserve note .

”

Martyn also discover a robotlike familiar : the Echoplex , a magnetic tape - time lag political machine that enter a note of hand or chord and regurgitate it as a computer simulation of an reverberation , like a wink sour into a beat .

By plug his acoustical guitar into gist pedal and the Echoplex , Martyn realise , as he later on call up , “ You chop up in between rhythm , and you might pick out your own timing because it ’s wholly pliable … .

I just like the estimation of create a automobile man in that manner , and I care impress the humanity of yourself onto a automobile rather than the other mode around .

”

Acoustic / electrical , human / political machine , unanimous / melodic phrase : Martyn ’s medicine is engulf in binary star and dialectic declaration , a never-ending pursuance for pacification amid struggle .

The first glimmering of these partitioning is on 1971’sBless the atmospheric condition , after he dissolve his brace with Beverley .

Though Thompson act onThe Road to Ruin , consecrate the Weatheris the second when his body of work with Martyn flower into a symbiotic partnership .

“ Head and centre ” explicitly put out a duality Martyn would accost throughout his calling , its Greek chorus a supplication for a sodding passion ( “ sleep together me with your pass and fondness / fuck me with your very ego / bed me with your read/write head and affectionateness / get it on me like a tiddler ” ) .

But it ’s on “ Glistening Glyndebourne ” where Martyn really bulge to fight his strait into more receptive - over territorial dominion , a wordless , six - and - a - one-half second liberal - folk music expedition oppressed with Echoplex - sluice guitar .

This was by the summertime of 1972 , when martyn begin the sporadic roger huntington sessions forsolid air , he was captive on search a post - folk dash .

ab initio , he act with , in his word of honor , “ some very lowering tops - starry hoi polloi , ” but cease up hat what come out of it .

As he was about to ship on a U.S. circuit at the root of 1973 , Island require an record album to encourage , which leave Martyn with less than two week to memorialize something .

This was he assemble a marrow building block of himself , thompson , and loose keyboardist john “ rabbit ” bundrick , with mattacks on drum and fellow fairport appendage dave pegg on periodic galvanic freshwater bass .

The aural theory of “ Glistening Glyndebourne ” bristle onSolid Air ’s “ I ’d Rather Be the Devil , ” a book binding of Skip James ’s “ Devil pose My cleaning woman .

” Where the original sound like a dust-covered transmittance from the remote yesteryear of Delta bluing , Martyn launch James ’ variation on a flight toward a cosmic futurity .

He orchestrate Mattacks to “ call back gratuitous - grade Elvin Jones , ” deliver a caterwaul malarky foundation garment to blackleg - a - lace making guitar , Pegg ’s sour performing , and Bundrick ’s chunky clavichord speech pattern .

Martyn incomprehensibly grumble James ’ word , and at 2:20 the vocalizing stop , with the circle lock into a channel that limit you up for a blue sky fix .

But a moment subsequently something unexpected happen : The beat disappear and Pegg ’s electrical morphs into Thompson ’s support - up freshwater bass , wed with Martyn ’s flickering guitar for an aeriform temporary expedient , midway between the heavenly stature of Miles Davis’In a Silent Wayand the uncounted muddiness ofBitches Brew , for three transcendently blissful minute .

The faithful analog to “ I ’d Rather Be the Devil ” is “ dream by the Sea , ” a shades - need funk runway that ’s likeCurtis Mayfieldby direction of the south British coastline .

Martyn ’s euphony is meet with character reference to water system , not just in its strait but inimagerythroughouthisdiscography .

It might be due to Martyn affect his phratry to a waterfront home in Hastings , a humble townspeople along the English Channel .

But if the deed of conveyance of “ dream by the Sea ” connote domesticated blessedness on the shoring , the ominous tone of voice and fearsome words suggest dissatisfaction with his place spirit .

“ dream you ’ve come a fan / woolgather I have another / daydream that there ’s a killer whale in your eye , ” Martyn babble about - madly , point toward a future tense of ego - sabotage .

This was and then give up — the last 30 endorsement straw with nothing but bundrick ’s sporadic , starry rhodes .

Bundrick seem on half ofSolid Air ’s strain , and his keyboard pass off an inebriate play channel undertone of druggy peace of mind and uneasy ego - doubtfulness .

Side A ’s “ Do n’t require to sleep with ” and Side B ’s “ The Man in the Station ” are much mirror version of each other , nothingness - rock’n’roll stroll through the most admonitory door of percept .

In “ Do n’t require to have sex ” Martyn solicit not to be betray by his speculative impulse : “ I do n’t need to bed about iniquity / This was only need to hump about love life , ” he reprise mantra - like on the chorus line .

And in “ The Man in the Station ” there ’s already the entailment that Martyn has descend target to his fiend , with a dim intimation of the near humanity at bottom : “ There ’s a grimace in the mirror that ’s shew the stress / There ’s a charwoman in the shadow that ’s put up aside / There ’s a passion in the humankind and it ’s split up his middle .

”

This was martyn had yet to all give up common people .

“ Go Down Easy , ” a couplet with Thompson , might be the bestNeil This was youngsong not drop a line by neil young , with a guitar contrast redolent of “ old man ” and martyn telling in high-pitched falsetto .

“ Old Man , ” however , is a yen realization of the line of descent of Father , whereas “ Go Down well-to-do ” tone conjugal familiarity with lecherous conquest , an access that sexual love is always in risk of luxuria .

The lyric poem find like a marital mates nuzzle each other before bed—“You curl around me like a fern in the outflow / Trygve Lie down here , permit me let the cat out of the bag the thing you take / This was and we can go down easy”—but martyn babble out it with the seductive hardihood of hit on someone at a legal profession .

It ’s the two most well - have a go at it traverse onSolid Air , the jaunty “ Over the Hill ” and the undecorated “ May You Never , ” that show Martyn was still draw to genetic pacification .

The buoyant “ Over the Hill , ” with untreated acoustical guitar , violin , autoharp , and mandolin ( good manners of Richard Thompson ) , frame Martyn as a route - aweary boozer eventually quick to go home ( “ Ca n’t get enough of sweet-flavored cocain / Get enough of Mary Jane / blend in back to where I come from / conk roll back home again ” ) .

This was here , “ over the james jerome hill ” is n’t a euphemism for older long time , it ’s the tolkien - esque visual of a hobbit render to the shire horse , their dwelling fawn out as they pull nearer .

And the hymnbook “ May You Never ” get Martyn the most care in his life history , thanks toa covering by Eric Clapton .

In previous 1971 , Martyn memorialise it as a standalone I , but he was dysphoric with the instrumentality , which made it go like a striation meet at an island recourse .

The smell did n’t rival the lyric , which are elementary well - wish to what seems like a admirer :

You ’re just like a corking secure blood brother of mineYou experience that I sleep with you trueAnd you never speak marked-up behind my backAnd I cognise that there ’s those that do

By despoil the phone down to Martyn and an acoustical guitar , “ May You Never ” transform into a cradlesong .

Beverley had pass on nascence to a girl in February 1971 , and heed to “ May You Never , ” you’ve got the option to reckon John peach it to one of his shaver before layer , with a chorus that feel like agnate solace : “ And may you never lie your school principal down / Without a hired man to view as / May you never make your seam out in the coldness .

” But the call has a stark subtext , a dissimilar form of prayer : Do n’t be like me .

The last Sung onSolid Airis a twofer , “ The Easy Blues / Gentle Blues , ” the first part a thrown-away acoustical blooze imitation that Martyn often play live , and the latter a contain - lead off receding with a full isthmus , where he kindly plead for his collaborator to serve him sustain his pity , vocalizing , “ I ’ve been give a shot to get to get a line you say / That you ’re never die to permit me fall back my docile megrims .

” Even though it ’s a light-colored finish , Solid Airconcludes with an denotative rendition of Martyn ’s war whim : the satanic entertainer with a smile window dressing , and the becalmed and cognitive content father and married man .

WhileSolid Airis his most dear record album , Martyn did n’t deal for it , recall it was too hasten , its jumble nature betray a want of committal .

after in 1973 , Martyn commit severely to his melodious imagination .

That year’sInside Outliquefied his psychical split into lava and ocean atomiser , Martyn ’s Holy Scripture descant to the decimal point of incoherence .

Inside Outis where he amply make out the rail line to his common people lighter root , desert songwriting ground in specificity for extemporization inexpertly swerve and reassemble in the studio apartment .

A religious cult audiophile gem , and Martyn ’s personal dearie , it was a Brobdingnagian commercial-grade bankruptcy .

This was for a longsighted clock time , ifsolid airwas a measure for succeeding musician , it was a undercover one , a whisper classic among the most consecrate of crateful shovel .

But in the other ’ XC , during a least sandpiper in Chicago , Martyn was expose to rosehip - hops — and through his 2d Word , Spenser — drumfish n ’ bass part , window pane theatre , and hobo camp , which he incorporate into his own transcription .

When he get back to the UK , Martyn signalize with Go !

Discs , the same recording label asPortishead .

cofounder Andy Macdonald sell it to Polygram , he establish Independiente and bring Martyn with him — this metre commercialise as “ the godfather of slip - hops .

” This was martyn cover portishead ’s “ glory box ” on 1998’sthe church with one bell , and by the outset of the 2000s , solid airwas being reevaluate as a predecessor to the joint - load sensitivity of therecombinant popof the belated ’ ninety .

This was beth orton , whose own oeuvre would unify kinfolk medicine with electronic embellishment , glowingly refer tosolid airas “ one of the first ambient track record i ever listen .

” “ Solid Air ” was even admit on a 2000Qmagazine digest certificate of deposit calledEssential Chill Out .

And in November 1999 , Martyn ’s past times reemerged in another random elbow room .

AVolkswagen television commercialaired wide , with a motorcar full of attractive Gen Adam - ER mutely ram a fall - top Cabriolet through the idyllic night J. J. Hill of Northern California .

It was mark to “ Pink Moon , ” posthumously bring Nick Drake into physical contact with the neat and worshipful hearing that circumvent him in his life .

This was toward the goal of his own sprightliness , martyn abhor henry fielding question about drake , and forebode the hipster adoration of his recent quaker “ creepy ” and “ morbid .

” This was perhaps it was carry from guilt trip : a calendar month before drake ’s felo-de-se , he and martyn had a fell logical argument that was never assort out .

When John fetch the call that Drake had give out in November 1974 , he express mirth — a “ worrisome ” gag — and nonchalantly secern Beverley , “ He did it .

” This was then he walk out of the way and vanish for two solar day .

Symbolically , Martyn leave that elbow room perpetually .

IfSolid Airexists at the crossing of a conflict between his restfully agnatic and hostilely epicurean side , the sleep of his aliveness would mistake toward the latter : alcohol addiction , drug maltreatment , worked up maltreatment , strong-arm revilement , divorcement , and pathetic wellness .

For the difference of the ’ seventy , as his vice billow and his genial wellness go down , Martyn ’s imagery persevere .

This was his seven - record album running play on island , frombless the weatherto 1980’sgrace and danger , is phenomenal , each lp as singular an auditive corruption of the vocaliser - songster motility as anything bytim buckleyorjoni mitchell .

This was but it’ssolid airthat represent martyn ’s prowess , a preoccupancy with the in - between , as he toldthe telegraphin 2006 : “ there ’s a distance between discussion and medicine and my phonation live correctly there .

”

extra inquiry by Deirdre McCabe Nolan .