Born in Surrey however raised in Glasgow, John Martyn solely started enjoying guitar when he was 15, but inside two years he was already eking out a residing from his music. Prodigiously proficient, the teenage Martyn was initially mentored by Scottish folkie Hamish Imlach (whose different protégés included Billy Connolly and Christy Moore), and he lower his enamel enjoying round native Glaswegian golf equipment. After gaining acceptance on the aggressive London folks circuit, nonetheless, Martyn signed to Chris Blackwell’s upwardly cellular Island imprint and launched his sparse, wholly acoustic debut LP, London Dialog, in October 1967. Although initially aligned with the period’s folks acts, Martyn rapidly branched out. Over the next decade, he accrued an eclectic catalog of critically hailed, pigeonhole-dodging releases together with Stormbringer!, Strong Air, One World, and his eighth solo album, Grace And Hazard: information which drew upon blues, jazz, reggae, and even components of what would now be classed as “world music.”
Hearken to Grace And Hazard on Apple Music and Spotify.
In 1969, Martyn married fellow singer-songwriter Beverly Kutner, who was then working with Nick Drake/Fairport Conference producer Joe Boyd. Each domestically and vocationally, the couple initially loved a harmonious relationship, with Stormbringer! and November 1970’s The Highway To Break credited to each John and Beverly Martyn. Nevertheless, their marriage broke down by the top of the 70s, and its collapse – and their subsequent divorce – later supplied the inspiration for Grace And Hazard.
Extremely private and typically nearly unbearably poignant, the album stays probably the most charged and resonant titles in John Martyn’s canon. Certainly, the report’s painfully intimate contents initially disturbed Chris Blackwell a lot that, whereas the album was accomplished in October 1979, he held up its launch and solely agreed to situation it a full 12 months later, in October 1980.
The emotional turmoil, nonetheless, spurred Martyn on to new heights of creativity. Eschewing his trademark effects-laden acoustic guitar in favor of a heavier electrical Gibson SG, he recorded Grace And Hazard with a dextrous, sympathetic in-studio band together with bassist John Giblin and Genesis drummer/solo star-in-waiting Phil Collins.
Collectively, the ensemble pieced collectively a uncooked, affecting, and steadily elegant number of tracks whose moods mirrored the maelstrom of feelings Martyn was then working by means of. There was a clutch of wracked, introspective ballads (the self-explanatory “Hurt In Your Heart”; the plaintive, resigned “Sweet Little Mystery”) however these had been balanced out by the offended, sarcastic titular music, the bittersweet blue-eyed soul of “Our Love” and an sudden, however brilliantly realized transforming of The Slickers’ 1971 reggae hit “Johnny Too Bad.”
Although its creator later admitted that writing Grace And Hazard had been “very cathartic”, the album was warmly obtained by followers and critics alike, who collectively agreed that this fiery troubadour had in some way alchemized inventive gold from the depths of despair. The report marked a turning level in Martyn’s industrial fortunes too, with its extra mainstream-inclined follow-up, 1981’s Superb Idiot, introducing him to the UK Prime 30 for the very first time.
Grace And Hazard may be purchased right here.
