Sweet, Certain Surprise.

The recent sad demise of John Martyn made my eyes mist with nostalgia for the many times he’s seduced my sensibilities through both recorded and live mediums. His skilful mastery of the amplified acoustic guitar and gravel soaked, free flowing vocal style, hooked me from the first moment I heard him. Although, I came very late to appreciate his skill; he’d already enjoyed a career of almost 20 years before he was inserted, quite readily, amongst my sphere of musical influences.

He'd arisen in the London Folk scene of the mid-sixties, impressing the cognoscenti right through to the height of his popularity with the release of 1973’s ‘Solid Air’; continuing on this glorious plateau until 1977’s ‘One World’ whereupon, like his marriage to wife Beverly, his career trajectory and popularity went into a declining arc. So it wasn’t until the difficult mid-eighties period, where there appeared to be no place left for his brand of elegant meandering and wistful folk-rock styling, when he would finally become indelibly installed into my consciousness.

It was late July 1984 and I can still recall hitchhiking with friends Marc and Nicola to ‘The Elephant Fayre’. A weekend rock festival held in the grounds of a stately home on the outskirts of Plymouth at Port Eliot, St. Germans in the stunning county of Cornwall.

Leaving on the Thursday evening it had taken us 24 hours to reach the festival campsite. Nicola had realised her mammoth mistake about halfway down, having struggled to get lifts all night long and most of the next morning accompanied, as she was, by us two big strapping geezers. She rather gleefully abandoned us at a service station near Bath when she was offered a ride the rest of the way to the ‘Fayre’ on the back of a rather forbidding Hells Angel’s Harley-Davidson. Nicola was at that stage in no mood to compromise whilst Marc and I, still within earshot of the aforementioned Hells Angel, were in no position to argue the wisdom of accepting lifts from large greasy, lank haired strangers.

Consequently, Marc and I having finally reached our destination on the Friday evening were relieved to find a thankfully unmolested but remorseless Nicola waiting patiently, with other mutual friends, for us to arrive with the tent and sleeping bags.

With darkness fast approaching, we hurriedly erected the tent on the only clear spot remaining for us: on the side of a hill with an alarmingly angled slope! This proved later to produce the hilarious result that we’d wake up each morning in our respective sleeping bags all scrunched together at the lower end of the tent.

Now that camp was precariously but expediently established we finally went off to explore the festival grounds. I was particularly keen to see a new and promising band called Prefab Sprout who’s album ‘Swoon’ I’d been playing non-stop since seeing them earlier in the year at a local gig in Brunel University’s Union Bar.

The Sprout’s set was very impressive and I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest by my second exposure to their quirky and loose live sound, even making allowances for Paddy McAloon's and Wendy Smith’s shaky vocals in this less than intimate of environments. Frequent listening to their recent album had already proven to me that they were more of a force to be reckoned with in the studio anyhow, and that the real gems in their repertoire lay in the sublime eloquence and outstanding poetry of McAloon’s lyrics. With lines like “Words are only trains, for moving past what really has no name” and “Man made the neon and he learned how to fly, but God made the stars when he fashioned the sky” he’d caught my imagination in a way very few other songwriters could.

Having seen the Sprouts I feared the rest of the weekend would be a musical anti-climax, however (unbeknownst to me at that point), by far the most outstanding and memorable performance of that weekend was still yet to come.

Sunday morning arrived yawningly sleepy and severely hung-over. We were all still a little groggy from the copious amounts of very cheap ‘scrumpy’ cider, we’d drunk directly and continuously from brown plastic demi-johns the previous evening. Our burps still tasting resolutely of alcoholic apples we’d found a quiet spot on a hillside, high above the main stage to while away the rest of the day. Later, having drunk a strong brew of ‘magic mushroom tea’ for lunch we continued to laze around in the brilliant sunshine, laughing, joking and horsing around but not really paying attention to the artists or what was actually happening on-stage.

I must’ve drifted into some sort of reverie whilst soaking up the warm rays of the mid-summer sun, lying back enjoying the smell of the fresh green grass of a typical English meadow. I hardly noticed the new act that appeared on the stage to entertain us, lost in delightful psilocybin induced hallucinations as I half closed my eyes squinting through my shades at the bizarre shapes formed by small fluffy cumulus clouds gently moving high above in an azure sky. The sound of guitars drifted from the main stage, it sounded like about three different, distinctly separate guitars actually, and then those gruff, yet somehow smoothly slurred, warm and honeyed vocal tones came drifting through the microphone along the wires to be equalised by the sound desk, through the amplifier and then out of the immense speakers to arrive promptly at my ear-holes and pervade deeply into my senses.

“Wow. This band is amazing!” was my first thought. I kept my eyes closed and continued to thoroughly enjoy the excellent sounds that seemingly washed over, through and all around me. I think it was two or even three songs into the set when I finally opened my eyes to further investigate exactly who it was that was enthralling me so much.

When I did I was shocked. There was John Martyn with acoustic guitar, completely alone and seated at the front of the stage, plugged into an array of effects pedals and electronic gadgetry by his feet. In my minds eye I’d envisioned a whole band of at least five people, such was the intensity of the polyrhythmic tunes that had engulfed my ears, but no just this one guy on guitar and vocals making all of that noise. I sat open-mouthed and amazed as John continued to entrance me and the rest of the festival audience with a set consisting of one incredible melodic song after another. He managed to somehow throw syncopation into the mix that sounded like a full percussion section playing along simultaneously, but was in fact just the odd slap from his hand or thumb against the guitar body or the click of his plectrum against the hard steel strings echoing continually via these effects boxes.

I later discovered that the secret of John’s particularly complex yet fluid ambient style was ‘Echoplex delay’, an effect he’d pioneered in electric folk music and was still using with devastating results.

That was why I thought I’d heard three distinctly different guitar sounds emanating from his single solo amplified acoustic guitar. That effect plus his skilful, super fast and lithe fretboard fingering produced a sound the like of which I’d never heard before, and boy was I hooked!

After that I collected every recording of his that I could lay my hands upon. The album ‘Solid Air’ is, in my humble opinion, a singular piece of recording perfection without even one duff track. Forty five minutes of mellow loveliness in which one can immerse oneself as if bathing in a vat of warm translucent caramel. I have particularly delightful memories of listening to this album on my first trip to Thailand, chilling with a ‘Sony Discman’ and a ‘thai-stick’ spliff in a hammock on a (virtually empty) tropical beach paradise. Life simply doesn’t get much better than that!

Many years later I found myself invited to a gig at ‘The Mean Fiddler’ in Harlesden. One of the resident soundmen there was a guy called Dave Florence, an Australian fellow affectionately and latterly known as ‘Aussie Dave’. I was, around that time, the manager of a rock band that regularly played there and ‘Aussie Dave’ had been so impressed by them that he’d offered to become the band’s resident soundman too. Thereafter he’d come with us to every gig venue at which we played, ensuring that our sound was the best imaginable despite the ambient, architectural or acoustic limitations he would be challenged with. Subsequently Dave and I developed a strong and lasting friendship and it was through this friendship that I received a phone message from him one day informing me that he’d put me on the guestlist for a forthcoming John Martyn gig at the ‘Fiddler’. I was naturally completely thrilled.

On the night of the gig it was rammed-full to the rafters, and I was grateful to Dave that he allowed me the privilege of watching everything next to him from behind the sound desk. The whole evening was absolutely amazing and John Martyn was on fine form, playing for at least 90 minutes, and even then being called back for a couple of encores. I’d taken the liberty of bringing my prized original ‘gatefold-sleeve’ copy of the ‘Solid Air’ LP with me, in the hope that Dave would be able to get it signed for me. Once all the commotion had died down after the gig Dave disappeared backstage with my album and a black marker pen to see if he could get John to sign it for me. I was absolutely bowled over when 10 minutes later Dave reappeared with the sleeve of this magnificent vinyl recording duly signed ‘To Rudi, One World! John Martyn’. It was a wondrous and breathtaking moment and I thanked Dave profoundly offering to buy him several beers later in gratitude.

“That’s not all”, he announced “He wants to meet you!”

“No way!” I said

“Fair dinkum mate.” Aussie Dave responded.

He gestured for me to follow him and, somewhat dazed, I did. We made our way backstage and Dave negotiated with security to let me have a backstage pass. As we approached the all too familiar dressing room door I turned to Dave.

“Hang on, I don’t know what to say to him”, I was confused and my brain just wasn’t functioning the way it should have been, addled at the prospect of meeting one of my all time favourite folk rock heroes.

“I’m sure you’ll think of something”, said Dave .

He opened the door with one hand and with the other planted firmly between my shoulder blades forcibly pushed me reluctantly into the dressing room.

I half stepped half stumbled blindly into the smoke filled room and was confronted with several seated people all of whom had stopped mid-conversation to stare at this sudden bumbling intrusion. In their midst sat the unmistakable figure of John Martyn.

“Er, Hi John…thanks for this” I vaguely waved the album at him.

“Oh that’s yours is it? My pleasure son, always nice to meet a true fan”, he answered in warm rounded-vowel tones of a pure London, almost ‘Cockney’ accent. “Take a seat”.

I looked around and saw a particularly moth eaten armchair, reeking with the sweat of thousands of spent musicians, and proceeded to sit down. My brain was stuck for ideas on what to say. I was desperately struggling to think of how I could adequately show my appreciation for this man and his music, whilst internally I was feeling like a befuddled and tongue tied 14 year old confronted with asking the girl of his dreams out on a first date.

“Excellent gig” I blurted out.

“Thanks” said John “Glad you enjoyed it!”

I could smell the heady aroma of marijuana in the air, several of John’s entourage were smoking joints and I could see that John himself had a roach between his fingers smouldering away. This gave me an idea of how better to proceed.

“Do you mind if I skin one up?” I asked.

“Course not” John nodded “The more the merrier!”

That’d made me feel slightly more comfortable. Rolling joints was one of my specialties and I just so happened to have three distinct types of cannabis with me. Moroccan; Soft Afghani Black and some Jamaican Sensimilia grass. I got out my large blue Rizla rolling papers and started to make a complex lattice work using John’s, freshly signed LP as a handy rolling surface. I was going to roll John one of my special around the world ‘Camberwell Carrots’.

Whilst I busied myself I listened to the conversation that John was now having with one of the entourage sitting in the room. It quickly became obvious that the four other people in the room were all Scottish. They were evidently friends of John’s from Glasgow. I knew from reading the liner notes on his albums that although John was born in Surrey, he’d spent his formative years, after his parents had divorced, living with his grandma in Glasgow. Subsequently he’d come back to London in his late-teens to become involved in the burgeoning London folk scene of the mid-sixties.

As I listened I realised that something a little strange was going on. When John spoke to his Glasgow friends he’d do so in a broad Glaswegian accent, using vernacular such as ‘blether’ and ‘scunnered'. Then in the same moment he’d turn to one of the backstage crew who’d just entered the room with a logistics question and answer him with a ‘Mockney’ London accent much like my own. I listened intently for a while bemused by this spectacle, when John had spoken to me he’d used the London accent and then switched back seamlessly to a Glaswegian accent to address his friends.

In a way I could relate to this, I have a talent for mimicking accents and often unconsciously do so when speaking to someone with an accent vastly different from my own. In fact I shared a flat for a while with a Scottish guy and rarely spoke to him in my true accent. So although John’s accent switching trick was familiar to me, it was nonetheless amusing to hear someone else doing it for a change.

I quickly finished rolling the vastly oversized joint, which I duly lit and then passed to John once it was well stoked. The rush hit my brain immediately after just a couple of short tokes, so I knew it was worthy of this legendary toker’s approval.

John accepted the oversized spliff from me eagerly and winked conspiratorially as he joked to his friends “Thanks man, but could you not have made it a wee bit bigger?”

His friends chuckled as John drew a deep lungful and then exhaled long and hard sending a billowing cloud of pungent thick grey smoke across the room.

“Woooooooooo” rasped John breathlessly “That’s nice and strong too, excellent work son!” He grinned at me and nodded his approval.

That felt good. As tongued tied and socially inadequate as I was in this great man’s company at least I was able to get him well and truly stoned.

I sat there for a while listening to the stories and memories from his Glaswegian friends, commenting politely now and then when I felt it was appropriate. My ‘mega-joint’ and several others were passed around sequentially in a circle and I finally started to feel comfortable amongst them as we all became more and more stoned together, chatting, laughing and joking.

After a while the harshness of all those doobies, made my mouth feel dry and I realised that I was the only one in the room without a drink. Not wishing to plunder John’s fast diminishing ‘rider’ I made my excuses, shook John’s and everybody else’s hand and left for the front-of-house bar in search of a thirst quenching pint of Guinness, pausing briefly to collect my newly signed copy of ‘Solid Air’ from beside the raggedy armchair.

I found Dave a little later, still behind the mixing desk and presented him with several bottles of beer that I’d just acquired from the bar. The grin on my face was akin to what our American cousins would call ‘shit eating’.

“Thanks Dave” I said "What an incredible evening. I can’t think of any way in which it could be improved upon.”

“I can”, smiled Dave as he reached over to the large silver TEAC machine next to the mixing desk and ejected a shiny new cassette which he then handed to me with a wink and a smile “Here's something nice to listen to on the way home.”

"That'd do it Dave", I sighed "That'd do it..."