Parent's Influence.

Thankfully, I've been blessed with parents with great music taste! As a baby my dad would play his old Woodie Guthrie and Lead Belly records in 'the wee small hours' to try get me back so sleep. He's also an old folkie and has some great old records in his vinyl collection, including Bob Dylan's self-titled first album. One record he has in his collection is Tracy Chapman's self-titled debut album, which was a gift from my mum when it first came out to him which is another amazing album!

My mum also has a great music taste, and a few of years ago I asked her who her favourite band/artist were. She instantly came back with John Martyn and Joni Mitchell. Through her, I now consider these artists as some of my favourites, with Joni Mitchell's 'Blue' as one of my favourite albums, which I was given on vinyl by a close friend for my last birthday, another of my prize possessions. 

Last week I bought a John Martyn biography, 'Some People Are Crazy' by John Neil Munro. After the first chapter I was hooked. Particularly as he grew up in the same area I did, lived a few streets from where I grew up and went to the same primary school as I did, which makes learning about his childhood and how he became the person he did and wrote the songs he did, all the more interesting.

When my mum told me John Martyn was one of her favourite artists, I hadn't heard him by this point. So I quickly pulled out all his old records and CDs about the house, and was hooked. His incredible, almost effortless, acoustic guitar playing, is accompanied by one of the most unusual voices I've come across. Only last night a friend and I were discussing somewhere around 5am, that sometimes when he sings, the words seem to become non-existent, and that it just becomes noise that we understand and that sounds good with the music. This becomes even more when you listen to his later recordings, in the 2000s before his death in 2009, when he was seriously ill and damaged due to long term drink and drug abuse. 

John Martyn is as famous for his lifestyle as he is for his music. For nearly his whole life he was a drug addict and an alcoholic. in the 1960s John married a fellow folk singer who became a collaborator, Beverly Kutner. Their marriage ended towards the end of the 1970s, and as a result, John's drink and drug abuse spiralled downwards, and he entered a state of depression, from which he never really escaped. During this time, he wrote an album 'Grace and Danger.' It was originally held back from release by a close friend of John's who seen it too personal and too open for the public to hear. Tracks like 'Baby, Please Come Home,' 'Sweet Little Mystery' and 'Hurt In Your Heart' stand out and give a straight insight into John's emotional state at the time, and just how fragile he was.

When it came to choosing a song of his to post, there were a few. From his happier stuff such like 'May You Never' and 'Over The Hill,' to his darker moments, particularly those from 'Grace and Danger' as mentioned earlier. So I've decided to post two, both from his darker side. The first video is an interview and live version of 'Hurt In Your Heart' from 2007, two years before his death. He discusses how he wrote music as an emotional release. We also get to see that the songs still mean so much to him, and even 30 years after he wrote them, they still reduce him to tears. 

The second video is my favourite John Martyn song, and possibly one of my all time favourite songs I've heard so far. The song is 'Couldn't Love You More' from his 1977 record 'One World.'

For those of you who haven't heard of John Martyn before this, then please go listen to more of him. Most of his stuff is on spotify. This song though is just incredible. Perfect for 2am when you know you should be fast asleep.