Stomping about the stage of the Shepherd's Bush Empire, muttering incomprehensible asides to his band, John Martyn sometimes resembles an amiable nutter basking in the glow of a gallon of Guinness.
From the moment he slurred "Good evening, Shepherd's Bush" it seemed likely John Martyn was half-cut.
What a long strange voyage these past 30 years have been for John Martyn-watchers. From boss acoustic fingerpicking through free- wheeling jazz, reggae and hip-hop experiments, the good ship McGeachie (his real name) has sailed, with occasional becalmed moments but with the interest always sustained by the mystery of where journey's end might be.
On a warm spring night in Dublin, a man is walking with concentration, but without purpose, the hood of his odd, patchwork jacket pulled up, a hint of belligerence in his gait.
John Martyn has been playing the South Bank since the late Sixties, even though he's never quite seemed at home there.
They started out like an efficient bar-room band, with a burst of R&B and a dip into the back catalogue, all given heavy-handed treatment thanks to their second drummer but enlivened, briefly, by the mysterious arrival on stage of John Martyn.
By selecting Philadelphia's accomplished, neo-jazzy Huffamoose as accompanists for his current East Coast tour, British singer-songwriter John Martyn signaled he was still searching, after 20 years, for musicians sophisticated enough to enrich his austere folk-blues songs.
From the moment he plugged in and began Dealer, there was something special.
We had come, most of us, to pay homage to and enjoy the results of a 26-year career, spanning 21 albums.
Pop and Jazz in Review
By JON PARELES
The blues is a touchstone for John Martyn. In the blues, he found music that transmutes pain into beauty, music that initiates select listeners into a secret world of loneliness and danger. But he didn't become one more blues imitator. Instead, he forged a highly individual style from British folk songs, jazz, soul and his own eccentricities: music with pinpoint syncopated vamps under hazy, free-form vocals, in songs that contemplate death and mourn lost love.
