Big Muff

The Big Question

One thing about John has been a mystery up until now: where did he get his stage name? Being born Iain McGeachy, he must have had some reason in the mid sixties for calling himself John Martyn.

Thanks to Chicago-based producer Jim Tullio (The Big Boy Who Saved Couldn't Love You More), the big question has been solved. This is what he heard from John personally on one of the various occasions they have met:

"He told me, his first agent told him he should change 'Iain David McGeachy'. So on the spot he looked around the room and saw a Martin guitar. He always loved Martin's so he claimed the name and decided to spell it with a y instead of an i.
The first name 'John' just came from nowhere, it seemed plain and simple enough. There you have it."

(In fact, 'Iain' is just the normal Gaelic form for 'John', like 'Ian'.)

The changing of one character was quite a usual practice in the sixties indeed: Beatles, Monkees, Byrds, and later Little Feat. John also produced an album called Philentropy.

So the peculiar Belgian beer mark shown here, 'existing since 1909': John Martin's (5.8% alcohol), has nothing to do with the matter. Except that John might have tasted it once or twice..

The Big Muff

The reason I chose the name Big Muff for this website is that I like the song and it seemed appropriate for such a big project. 'Big Muff' is also the name of a pedal distortion device for the guitar, widely used by people including Jimi Hendrix.
It took me a while to find out that the name also has a less appropriate connotation. But by that time it was too late to stop...