With young singer-songwriters who have come under Martyn's influence, include Lucy Rose and Katie Spencer, taking their place alongside the seasoned performers Eddi Reader and Paul Weller, this was a parade of classics for the Martyn devotees who filled the hall to capacity and occupied the upstairs standing areas.
This heartfelt celebration was curated and compered by Martyn's close friend and associate, the ace bassist Danny Thompson, "wearing the gear" (a kilt) for the occasion and helming a band of "the original chaps",
This Celtic Connections' jewel marked 10 years since the death of a jazz-folk visionary. It was a reminder of his potent talent
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It was on the One World tour that I got to see John Martyn play in concert again. Birmingham Town Hall is a striking Romanesque monument to Victorian provincial achievement, taste & rectitude.
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The first time I saw John Martyn play live was on the 19th of February 1972. Blimey, I was just a baby!
Danny Thompson and Friends: Connected, Old Fruit Market, Glasgow
In the end, the tribute concert that wasn't intended as a tribute concert paid a mighty tribute.
The main business of the evening may have been to focus on the assembled guests and the work that has reinforced their connections with Danny Thompson – and the classiness of Darrell Scott and Tim O'Brien delivering their Walk Beside Me and O'Brien’s sister Mollie raising the hairs on the back of the neck with her gospel-infused singing of No Ash Will Burn, reinforced the quality of the great bass player's associates.
Was it just me or was there something especially rejuvenated about John Martyn as he played Jelly Roll Blues, having completed the advertised revisiting of his classic Grace & Danger LP?
'Some people keep diaries – I make records," John Martyn once claimed, admitting that his 1980 album Grace & Danger was "probably the most specific piece of autobiography I've written".
Mark Skipworth reviews John Martyn, Grace and Danger Live at the Barbican in London
All the greats have got one: that painful, intense, atmospheric studio album that was so emotionally demanding to make that it could rarely, if ever, be recreated in live performance.
In the late 1960s it was a novel, far-reaching idea when folk-rooted guitarists in the United States and England began toying with the harmonies and syncopations of jazz.
