Squeezed between trips to Germany for work I saw John Martyn last week at the Royal Albert Hall. For his Solid Air tour. I was really excited about it, two of his albums are magnificent, Solid Air (1973) and One World (1977) and I was looking forward to listening to "Go Down Easy" live, a song that can make grown men cry.
Musically John is still a genius, he had a great band, great arrangements and played the guitar like the devil would. Physically though he's not in good shape. He's a drinker and recently he had one of his legs amputated. And he's massive now, with laboured breathing, but that didn't detract from his singing.
So the gig left me feeling a bit empty and sad, but proud in the knowledge I'd witnessed a folk/blues/jazz legend.
Unfortunately for me, but quite amusingly, I'd been to the Royal Albert Hall at the end of March to see a comedy night hosted by Russell Brand and Noel Fielding. And yes, they were piss inducingly funny....
But one of the contributors was Matt Holness... aka Merriman Weir (also played Garth Marenghi - which I reccomend to anyone). Merriman Weir is a spoof folk musician specialising in the melancholic... he's actually a brilliant guitarist but seeing him so close to the John Martyn gig polluted my mind and made me laugh listening to Solid Air, which is wrong!
One song particularly "Loving You" was almost a spoof of John Martyn with that vaguely incoherent vocal style...
Regarde...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-CkvEcdubU
And the main man....
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