Dust Bin John & Beverley Martyn - Road To Ruin
posted by on January 22 at 12:45 PM
Last week while in Chicago the Virgin Megastore was having this unbelievable sale on Japanese imports and I picked up this long out-of-print album by a young John Martyn and his wife Beverley. I am not that fond of John Martyn’s solo work, but having heard a couple of songs sung by Beverley from this album I decided to pick it up. Besides, the price had been dropped from $28 to $5.
Road To Ruin is amazing. It’s the second of 2 albums the couple made. John and Nick Drake were good friends and you might say that John copied some of Drakes lazy soft-spoken vocal style. It helps that the album, both of their albums actually, were produced by the masterful super-producer of the 60’s and 70’s, Joe Boyd (Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, Soft Machine, Shirley Collins, Nico and Nick Drake are just a small blip on his massive resume and roster of stars he worked with and produced).
In Joe’s own words:
When my Witchseason Productions company made its deal with Island Records in 1968, Chris Blackwell gave me copies of the first two John Martyn lps and asked me to think about producing him. I wasn’t that big a fan of John’s and felt I had enough on my plate. But one of the new artist I was starting to work with was a young woman called Beverly Kutner, and she suddenly announced that she and John were going to be a musical and personal couple, so I ended up working with John after all.John and Bev never carved out a career together - it was usually John doing solo gigs while Beverly minded the kids. But the records have some very enjoyable high points.
I spent many a pleasant evening with John and Bev and Nick Drake in a flat not far from Primrose Hill and remember those evenings with great fondness.
Beverley has pretty much been quiet for a while, but her Wikipedia site has some fascinating info about various colaborations in her past. John of course went on to be “John Martyn” and has released a large number of, to me, boring semi-“jazzy” folk albums, but John and Beverley Martyn’s two albums together are a wonder. Exceptional and beautiful.
Check out some samples at my blog, here.
Terry,
Thanks for stirring up some great memories.
I have sold quite a few of my LPs for financial reasons but two that I will always keep in my collection no matter what are a solo album by John called "Bless the Weather" and John and Beverley's "Stormbringer".
I will second the praise for Stormbringer and Bless the Weather, and add a recommendation for Martyn's Inside Out.
These aren't as sublime as Nick Drake's LPs, but they're packed with distinctive guitar playing and oddly insular and soulful singing.
Terry,
Thanks for the link to your blog. I love the weird psychedelic-primitive side of the British folk revival in the '70s. Do you know the album "Bright Phoebus," by Lal & Mike Waterson? (backed by Richard Thompson, Martin Carthy and Maddy Prior of Steeleye Span, et al.) If you ever run across it, grab it!
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