Solid Air - John Martyn

Unique and intoxicating.

John Martyn’s songs are woven into the fabric of my life; no album more so than Solid Air. I was introduced to it back in 1973 when I was fourteen and heavily into Bowie, Pink Floyd and Yes. But Martyn’s music was like nothing I had ever heard before. It had a raw intensity and an emotional core running right through it. I was hooked.

He was a gifted guitarist, with a delicate touch and a sparseness that tricked you into believing that he wasn’t doing very much. He used his voice as if it were another instrument, with slurred indistinct lyrics where the feelings and emotions seemed more important than the actual words he was singing. I simply got it. It connected. It spoke to me.

Over the years I continued to buy virtually every album that he ever released, but it was always Solid Air that I would go back to, time after time; my late-night album of choice.

Even after thirty-nine years of repeated listening the title track can still make me cry if I’m in the right frame of mind. But it’s an album full of other little gems like “Over the Hill”, “Go Down Easy” and “Man in the Station”. It also has John’s “signature” composition, the wonderful “May You Never” which he performed acoustically on The Old Grey Whistle Test, and was what prompted me to buy the album in the first place. But for me none of these surpass the sublime title track.

The Moment DT’s bass and those vibes kick in I’m back in 1973 at the age of fourteen, where everything is possible, and the future stretches out in front of you full of limitless possibilities. It also, even after all these years, makes me feel stoned just listening to it.

I guess that’s what great music does for you.

John’s death affected me greatly. It was no real surprise; he’d lived on the edge for so long that sooner or later he was bound to slip off. His self-destructive path finally led to a point where his luck ran out. But it was a genuine sense of loss, almost as if I’d lost a part of my personal history.

I was fortunate enough to see John live on dozens and dozens of occasions. The first time I saw him was in the mid-seventies about the time of One World. My first proper date with my wife was to see him at the Town and Country Club in Kentish Town back in 1986. With an amazing symmetry the last time I saw him was twenty-two years later when I took our then eighteen-year-old son to see him perform the “Grace and Danger” album at The Barbican in November 2008. By January 2009 he had gone.

He leaves a legacy of stunning music, and Solid Air remains one of his finest hours.