Big Muff

When the late British musical icon John Martyn sat down at the keys, veteran rock producer and good friend Jim Tullio sighed. Martyn, an innovative guitarist and singer, had just finished a suite for the London National Ballet Company, which Tullio was mixing, but insisted he needed to lay down a keyboard part. Tullio prepared for hours of noodling, but Martyn made one pass and left. As Tullio incorporated the track into the mix, he was blown away.

Exactly a year ago, late in the morning of 29 January, 2009, the news began to circulate that John Martyn had died at the age of 60. I spent the following 24 hours or so talking to many of his cronies to help assemble a tribute feature for The Word magazine. Chris Blackwell, the man who had signed him to Island in 1967, had just stepped off a plane in Jamaica. He sounded fuzzy and uncertain. He knew Martyn was dead but needed details. "What happened, I haven't heard?" he asked. Pneumonia, I told him. "Ah, God, that'll do you in."

Published on 25 Jan 2010

Almost a year after his death, John Martyn’s life is the focus of a celebratory concert. But the man behind the music remains as mysterious as ever.

He was an incurable romantic who was handy with his fists. Within his burly, imposing frame lay a soulful, expressive voice, and his songs lent themselves to cover versions by artists as renowned as Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton and Ralph McTell. As for his guitar playing, he was a master of the craft, an enduringly influential and inventive figure.

John Martyn, alas, is with us no more. He died less than a year ago, on January 29, 2009, aged just 60, of double pneumonia in a hospital in Ireland. On hearing the news, his long-time friend, the singer Phil Collins, was moved to say: "He was uncompromising, which made him infuriating to some people, but he was unique and we’ll never see the likes of him again. I loved him dearly and will miss him very much."

With his slurred voice and Echoplexed guitar, John Martyn forged a unique sound and style somewhere between folk, rock and jazz. Michael Heatley salutes an irreplaceable artist.

The partner of the late folk and blues artist John Martyn yesterday collected an OBE on behalf of the musician, who died in January at the age of 60. Teresa Walsh collected the honour from the Prince of Wales at the Buckingham Palace investiture service.

When folk-rock legend John Martyn died the music industry went into mourning, but few felt the loss deeper than Cardiff drummer Arran Ahmun and Barry bassist Dave Ball, who performed with Martyn throughout his career. The musicians talk to GAVIN ALLEN about the many sides of John Martyn...

Hundreds of mourners flocked to the small town of Kells in County Kilkenny at the weekend to attend the funeral of world-renowned folk musician John Martyn.

John who had been living in Thomastown with his partner Theresa, died on Thursday last week.

I first met John one sunny afternoon in 1977. I was watching tv in the living room at Hamish Imlachs place in Motherwell Scotland. The door crashed open and in walked this tall hyper young guy in his late 20's, wearing a well tailored suit (quite impressive then, as we were all slopping around in jeans & baggy things) and asked me "Who're you?" - "Well, I'm Phil, who're you?" - "I'm John, pleased to meet ya." It's strange how time distorts things but that's how I remember it, although we later often argued about our different versions of the event and the length of time we'd been friends.

British musician John Martyn has died aged 60. Our writer recalls a prickly encounter and examines his legend and his legacy.

Singer and guitarist John Martyn had a reputation that always preceded him. A rebel in all senses, he railed against every musical cliché and genre straitjacket they tried to pin on him – annihilating the genre barriers between folk, blues, jazz, rock and avant-garde as he bullishly rejected attempts to tame him and mould him into a sellable product.

In 'Paranoia City', the hellhole that was our home, Martyn's heartfelt concert made us feel human again.

The news of John Martyn's passing took me back to a packed gymnasium in what, at the time, was one of the most dangerous high security prisons in the country. HMP Long Lartin, a festering wound of a jail nestled in the heart of the beautiful Vale of Evesham, Worcs, held men serving some of the longest sentences in the system.

Throughout his life he kept searching for new musical forms in which to express essential themes: love, loneliness, and what it means to be alive

At the 2008 Mojo awards, where he accepted the Les Paul Award for being a phenomenal guitarist, an inspirational figure and an all-round cool guy, John Martyn gave sage, slightly slurred advice to future generations. "The power is definitely in the music, not the people," he said. "The music is the cool bit."

John Martyn was one of those people, rare in the narcissistic world of rock and pop, who realised what he produced was far more important than who he was. He treated life as a game – a tragic game, but not without its comic absurdity. At the Mojo awards Martyn, a famously heavy drinker whose right leg was amputated below the knee in 2003, said as he took to the stage: "I promised them I wouldn't get legless before the gig …"

THE barman is having trouble with the drinks order.

Grace And Danger was the highly personal album that marked John Martyn's divorce and saw him leave Island Records in 1980. But its difficult conception hasn't stopped the 60-year-old singer-songwriter returning to it for his latest UK tour, following a successful trip around the country playing his classic Solid Air album last year.

One song: more musical than another?

This is the quandary my listening habits have put me in lately. Recently (well, really, for the last year or so), I've been fascinated and enraptured by the song "May You Never" by British folk singer John Martyn. Included on his 1973 album "Solid Air," the song (later covered by Eric Clapton, though I've never heard his version) is an embarrassment of melodic and rhythmic riches. Gently loping finger-picked guitar sets the song's addictively ambling tempo. Martyn's careful use of dynamics creates an awesomely percussive sound, soft and folky yet ferociously mobile, each acoustic pluck tickling the ear.