John Martyn: 1948 - 2009

I was at work this afternoon when I learned from Stealthy Ninja, one of our security guards, that John Martyn had died last Friday.

He was 60 years old.

John Martyn was an extraordinary talent; singer, songwriter and guitar innovator.

He was also something of a hell-raiser, taking the time-worn path of drink, drugs and hotel room demolition.

There are many tales of excess, including one of a concert where he was so blotto that he fell off the stage.

After the gig, he remarked, “Yeah, I fell off the stage . . . but I still got three encores”

I only saw him play live once, and thinking about that gig takes me back to . . .

----SLOW CROSSFADE----

. . . the 1970s.

I was temporarily living back with my parents, having been evicted from a flat that I had shared with some friends, so when I’d heard from my mates at Lancaster University that John Martyn was playing there, I had leapt at the chance to get away for the weekend. There were a couple of problems however. I was living in Worcestershire, the gig was 170 miles away in Lancaster and I had no vehicle.

There was also the added complication that it was the day my nephew was being christened, and I was privileged enough to have been asked to be his godfather. (Don’t even think of doing a Marlon Brando impersonation.) Two unmissable events on the same day; how typical.

An unlikely solution was found when I learned that another friend of mine, who was attending a wedding on that day, needed someone sober to drive his car so that he could get to the gig after having a skin-full.

So we made it in time, even though there was detour to Solihull to collect another Martyn fan.

The car was a Ford Capri, and it was about the most uncomfortable thing I have ever driven; the roof was so low that I had to hunker down in the driver’s seat, and even though the original steering wheel had been replaced by one that was about the size of a shirt-button, I kept clouting my knees on it.

The gig, however, was brilliant. It was everything we had expected and more. The majority of the set was from the “Solid Air” and “Inside out” albums, with a bunch of older stuff too. I’m sure that John Martyn was far from sober at the start of the set, and by the end he must have been well stoned too. At one point, a bloke in the audience handed him an enormous joint, and having taken a hefty drag on it, he beamed out across the crowd, exhaled slowly and said “Ahhh. Lancaster . . . It’s great to be back”.

He didn’t fall off the stage either.