Spencer the Rover

[Railroad Bum]

Originally Posted by raysachs

Man, that’s beautiful Tim. I don’t know much of John Martyn beyond “May You Never”, which I play a lot, but I think I take more from Eric Clapton’s version than Martyn’s original. So this tune is completely new to me, but I dug it a LOT. And yeah, it’s a bit more of a vocal tune than a guitar tune, but your accompaniment was about perfect. Jeez, am I gonna have to dive deeper in John Martyn now too?

Really well done,

-Ray

Ray, thank you for checking out the tune. Yes, Martyn is a rabbit hole well worth going down. You can kind of split his material up into more traditional sounding fingerpicked tunes and very experimental processed acoustic pieces. They are both quite beautiful, and his jazzy voice and heartfelt lyrics carry whatever he is doing. He spent a few years playing with jazz bassist Danny Thompson, and I think that is some of his strongest live material, apart from his early solo playing. In the 80s and 90s, he became more of a frontman for a full band. I thought that took away from the power of his songwriting, but it was still pretty good and led to a couple cool collaborations with Phil Collins and David Gilmour. As the years rolled by, Martyn's health went south, propelled by his hard-drinking/hard-living lifestyle. He passed away in 2009 at the age of 60. As far as albums, I would recommend London Conversation, Stormbringer, Road to Ruin, Bless the Weather, Solid Air, Inside Out, Sunday's Child, and One World. That's roughly 1967 through 1977. I am still exploring his later material, but his earlier stuff is way stronger. The drinking and drugs took an obvious toll on his voice by the 1980s and just got worse.

Sorry, I didn't mean to write a book there.

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by Railroad Bum

Ray, thank you for checking out the tune. Yes, Martyn is a rabbit hole well worth going down. You can kind of split his material up into more traditional sounding fingerpicked tunes and very experimental processed acoustic pieces. They are both quite beautiful, and his jazzy voice and heartfelt lyrics carry whatever he is doing. He spent a few years playing with jazz bassist Danny Thompson, and I think that is some of his strongest live material, apart from his early solo playing. In the 80s and 90s, he became more of a frontman for a full band. I thought that took away from the power of his songwriting, but it was still pretty good and led to a couple cool collaborations with Phil Collins and David Gilmour. As the years rolled by, Martyn's health went south, propelled by his hard-drinking/hard-living lifestyle. He passed away in 2009 at the age of 60. As far as albums, I would recommend London Conversation, Stormbringer, Road to Ruin, Bless the Weather, Solid Air, Inside Out, Sunday's Child, and One World. That's roughly 1967 through 1977. I am still exploring his later material, but his earlier stuff is way stronger. The drinking and drugs took an obvious toll on his voice by the 1980s and just got worse.

Sorry, I didn't mean to write a book there.

Hey, it’s a very short book, well worth reading for someone like me who knows less about Martyn than I’d like to. Thanks for writing it!

-Ray

[Railroad Bum]

Originally Posted by raysachs

Hey, it’s a very short book, well worth reading for someone like me who knows less about Martyn than I’d like to. Thanks for writing it!

-Ray

Shoot, my friend. It's my absolute pleasure. There's nothing I like better than talking music. I have so few opportunities in real life to do it, so I cherish things like this. Thank you, Ray.

[Jim Owen]

Nice job, Railroad. It’s one of my favorite John Martyn tunes.

[Railroad Bum]

Originally Posted by Jim Owen

Nice job, Railroad. It’s one of my favorite John Martyn tunes.

Jim, thank you so much. It's great to meet another John Martyn fan. And we are both in North Carolina--synchronicity, lol.