JOHN MARTYN
Bless The Weather (Island ILPS 9167).

Bless John Martyn. Here's an album to delight from one end to the other, and there's not a wet spot during it either. Except... well, except the slightly outrageous addition of Singing In The Rain as the final track, sung innocently by John, and it also sounds as if he really enjoys doing it.

The rest of Bless The Weather is undiluted John Martyn, guitar craftsman, distinctive singer and composer courageous. An intense instrumental, for instance, like Glistening Glyndebourne, with its jazz leanings, could have been pretty insubstantial stuff. You know, tinkle tinkle, crash crash. Avant-garde. Well, it's actually a potent piece of writing and playing, notes flying in all directions towards the end.

And the songs are very much John Martyn. The honesty of Bless The Weather, the good-time appeal of Sugar Lump and the whimsical Go Easy are all rich with Martyn's haunting voice. As I said, Bless John Martyn. B.M.

sitenotes:
This review appeared in Record Mirror of 25 December 1971. It was signed 'B.M.', my guess is this must have been the initials of Bill Millar.