Showing posts with label John Martyn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Martyn. Show all posts

Thursday 31 January 2019

Grace and Danger Review


A troubled soul looking for love…

What a glorious concert to celebrate one of Scotland’s best loved singer songwriters, John Martyn. He was born in London, but after his parent divorce when he was five, it was Glasgow that formed him. – where he lived with his father and grandmother. 

The tribute concert was hosted by double bass Danny Thompson who recounted anecdotes of his tours with Martyn. His immense legacy is well preserved by the fine artists who performed tonight at Glasgow concert hall as part of Celtic Connections. They sang some of his best loved songs.


We were graced with quality guitar playing by American blues guitarist Eric Bibb, who opened the concert with Martyn’s perfect Solid Air. He also performed accomplished guitarEasy Bluesand a moving One World.  

With the full band Ross Wilson (aka Blue Rose Code) performed with dynamic rhythms and heartfelt soul Make no Mistake, and in his first set soulful Fine Lines and Bless the Weather, along with strings led by Greg Lawson


Several younger singer songwriters expressed his widespread musical influence on their work. Lucy Rose provided intimate emotions with the song I Couldn’t Love you More, while Katie Spencer sang, Hurt in Your Heart and John the Baptist

English singer songwriter John Smith performed the songs, Walk Down, Spencer the Rover and Go Down Easyalong with Thompson’s double bass: he sounded very Martyn-like. 
Popular Scottish singer Eddi Reader performed with the string ensemble  the upbeat Dancing, Certain Surprise, and a moving Fairytale LullabyBrit award winners Paul Weller (of The Jam fame and considered a leading mod figure) played the songs, Evil in Your Heart and Sweet Little Mystery.


The concert ended with all on stage to sing his best loved song May You Never, followed by a video of Martyn in concert singing the poignant Over the Rainbow. 
What a memorable, moving night!

Like many of the greats, Martyn mixed varied influences to take his music to the edge, with pounding blues rhythms, Celtic heart and moving soul.  He recorded 22 studio albums and toured exclusively. 



Thursday 25 October 2018

CELTIC CONNECTIONS 2019 launched!

Rab Noakes Old Fruitmarket

Celtic Connections 2019 announced today for its 18 days major winter music festival, 
From 17thJanuary to 3rdFebruary
The UKs premier celebration of celtic music. Over 20 venues in Glasgow, 300 events and 2,100 artists 
The festival will feature alongside one of special event concerts – film screenings workshops, talks, theatre, ceilidhs, exhibitions, free events and late night sessions.

Celtic Connections includes innovative collaborations while respecting past traditions and encourages new talent with late sessions, open mic and more.

Cara Dillon and Scottish National orchestra City Halls
Karen Matheson & Julie Fowlis
In this year of young people, the Opening Concert2019 will celebrate new talent and the passing of traditions between the generations and 15 years since Harvest 2004.

Appearing in 2019 – Rhiannon Giddens, Loudon Wainwright III, Graham Nash, Judy Collins, Kathy Mattea, Eddi Reader, Blazin Fiddles, Cherish the Ladies, Karen Matheson, John Grant, Elephant Sessions, Aiden Moffat and RM Hubbert. 

Special one off concerts include - 
Gaelic singer Kathleen MacInneswill perform with Amilinafrom Iceland, and string section for Sigur Ros. Rachel Sermanni and Jariath Hendersonwith the Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Karine Polwart and Kris Dreverwith the SCO. 

A celebration of folk-blues singer-guitarist John Martyn’s Grace and Danger album with a special line up – Paul Weller, Lucy Rose, Eddi Reader, Ross Wilson, Rory, Butler, Eric Bibb, John Smith, Katie Spencer.

Punch Brothers concert hall
Richard Thompson
*Visual Performances – showcase of Brave in Concert 
And The Bards Tale – a virtual journey through an 18th century Scotland with music, gameplay and acting and some of Scotland’s  finest singers.
Along with Showcase Scotland, World music, Celtic cousins (Ireland, wales Basque country) 

Full details & TICKETS Celtic Connections website - https://www.celticconnections.com/



**Celtic Connections Journeys and Photos since 2008.

I’ve been looking over some of my favourite images from Celtic festival. I’ve been honoured to shoot at the festival since 2008. Its hard to pick my best memories because there are so many!

From the top ceilidh bands, the famous, well kent faces, the emerging young talent, the skilled musicians, indie rock bands, the exciting collaborations and beautiful singers, the pipes and Gaelic song, world music and Irish dance – Celtic has them all and more.
Mogwai
Danny Thompson

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Beverly & John Martyn


Martyn soothed the soul with his folk blues
The early 70s were a golden time for new music albums.  In 1973 singer songwriter and expert guitarist, John Martyn, released a defining British album of the 1970s Solid Air. The title song was a tribute to Nick Drake. He developed a new sound of acoustic guitar through a fuzz box, phase shifts and Echoplayer first shown on the album Stormbringer.  
Martyn’s music exhibited feelings of serenity, freedom and rapture that he craved in his life. In 1967 he recorded his experimental album London Conversation outside, which gave the record a free, unconstructed feel. .
I was going to write this blog about John, but when I started reading about him I discovered he gained much from his wife Beverly Kuter (which then led to my blog on woman and art).




I read recently about Beverly Martyn (or Bev Kutner) who had worked with Paul Simon, Nick Drake and Jimmy Page before she met John. I was surprised to hear of their song writing collaborations, her being a partnership with John and then her being left at home with the children, a home on top of a hill. A home she didn't even choose. 

Apparently John Martyn wrote his best songs with Beverly Kutner, his wife, which she gets little credit for.  Bev played piano while they wrote songs together for the album Solid Air and John would say that he would ‘credit her on the next song!’

Beverly and Martyn recorded three albums together  - Stormbringer, Road to Ruin and Bless the Weather - before John was persuaded by his record label to go solo. Beverly was then left on the house on the hill to raise their children while John toured. When John turned to drink he became abusive towards her and after one threatening scene Bev decided to leave him after ten years of marriage.
....and yet John wrote the song May You Never with Bev, all very poignant really. 
May You Never has to be one of the all time greatest songs yet when the song  was released as a single in 1971 it didn’t chart. The end of his marriage to Bev signalled the end of their classic songwriting decade.

Martyn was born Iain McGreachy and he gew up with an unsettled childhood. John spent his childhood between his grandmother in Glasgow and his mother in London. On tour Martyn was accompanied by jazz double bass player Danny Thompson for most of his music career. His blend of stand out bluesy folk and slurry style of singing gave Martyn a stand out sound on the 1960s folk circuit. Over his 40 year career John released 21 studio albums.
Times quote – ‘an electrifying guitarist and singer whose music blurred the lines between the boundaries of folk, jazz, rock and blues.’ 

Wednesday 22 May 2013

Woman and Art

I read recently about Beverly Martyn (or Bev Kutner) who had worked with Paul Simon, Nick Drake and Jimmy Page before she met John. I was surprised to hear of their song writing collaborations, her being a partnership with John Martyn and then her being left at home with the children, a home on top of a hill. A home she didn't even choose. Apparently John Martyn wrote his best songs with Beverly Kutner, his wife, which she gets little credit for.  Beverly and Martyn recorded three albums together  - Stormbringer, Road to Ruin and Bless the Weather - before John was persuaded by the record label to go solo. She played piano while they wrote songs together for the album Solid Air.  John said that he would credit her 'on the next song.' Beverly was then left on the house on the hill to raise their children while John toured. When John turned to drink he became abusive towards her and after one threatening scene Bev decided to leave him after ten years of marriage.
....and yet John wrote the deeply caring song 'May You Never', all very poignant really.  
Beverly and John Martyn

I also used to wonder about the artist Margaret Macintosh, the wife of the better known Glasgow artist Rennie Macintosh. She was first a collaborator with her sister, and later with her husband, the architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Macdonald was celebrated in her time by many of her peers, including her husband who wrote, "Remember, you are half if not four-quarters of all my architectural...Margaret has genius, I have only talent." It is not known exactly which of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's works Margaret was involved with but she is credited with being an important part of her husband's figurative, symbolic interior designs.  These include the Rose Boudoir at the International Exhibition at Turin, the designs for House for an Art Lover and the Willow Tea Rooms. Her best known works include the panel The May Queen, which was made to partner Mackintosh's panel The Wassail for Miss Cranston's Ingram Street Tearooms, and Oh ye, all ye that walk in Willowood, which formed part of the decorative scheme for the Room de Luxe in the Willow Tearooms. Together with her husband, her sister, and Herbert MacNair, she was one of the most influential members of the collective known as the Glasgow Four. She exhibited with Mackintosh at the 1900 Vienna Secession, where she was arguably an influence on the Secessionists Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann.
Panel by Margaret Macintosh

There have been some outstanding women photographers.  
Great Women Photographers include Eve Arnold and Dorothea Lange (Migrant Mother).
Migrant worker by Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange 1895 – 1965 was an American photo journalist, best known for her Depression Era work for the Farm Security Administration ( FSA).  Her photographs drew attention to the plight of migrant farm workers, rural poverty and exploitation of share croppers. Her husband, economist Paul Taylor, interviewed and took economic data over the plight of migrant workers while she photographed and they documented rural poverty and the exploitation of share croppers and migrant labourers.  Her photos led aid being sent to the camps. Eve Arnold, 1912 - 2012 was an American photojournalist. She joined Magnum Photos agency in 1951 and became a full member in 1957. Her interest in photography began in 1946 while working in a photo-finishing plant and she learned photographic skills from at the New School for Social Research; She went on to photograph many iconic figures – including Marilyn Monroe. She left the United States and moved permanently to England in the early 1960s. While working for the London Sunday Times, she began to make serious use of colour photography. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers. She did a series of portraits of American First Ladies. She received an OBE in 2003.
Photographer Eve Arnold
There are many great women writers -  Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, more. I attend the Edinburgh International Book festival (EIBF) each year and in the book world there is a true equality - its' all about the craft and substance. 
In music in recent years there has been a rise in woman musicians gaining attention, as opposed to decorative woman singers. In the UK in particular there has been new strong solo women who play, write and perform – Adele and Emeli Sande.   
Emeli Sande

I have read of many out standing woman artists down the years – the question is how many of them have been able to break thorough and most have been left in the shadows of their better known partners. The women have been left with the day to day chores of raising children and keeping the home going. Of course being a mother is and should be the most rewarding  job of all - and it is. I have raised three children and it is also very demanding (!) on a woman's time and energies. In the UK in particular, the role of homemaker as it is known in the States, is undervalued and not treated with the respect the role deserves. In America mothers are given more respect as they are after all the bedrock of society. I don't know why.

Even in today's world of equality were many women are the main wage earners it falls to their lot to also be the main homemakers too. So this is a few words here to the forgotten woman artists and writers.. and a special few to those woman who are breaking free.
Perhaps women need to feel they can be equals in the creative arts - particularly in art and music. 
To name but a few of the great women behind the men. I am certain there are many many more. 

Marilyn Munroe by Eve Arnold