John Neil Munro - Some People are Crazy: The John Martyn Story

You cant mess with Father Time, can you? Hes going to catch you, whether you run fast or slow.

John Martyn

Well, old Father Time finally caught up with John and he died on 29 January 2009. A bout of double pneumonia did for John but even after reading all the fulsome obituaries it still seemed unbelievable that he had really passed away this time. Throughout his life John was a magnet for misfortune and the list of ailments and calamities he survived was genuinely astounding: an exploding pancreas, a leg amputation, impalement on a fence post and a car crash with a cow were the most eye-catching , though during the research for this edition I discovered that he nearly died once from seizures and almost drowned after slamming his head into a rock while swimming underwater. Fist fights were a regular occurrence in Johns adult life and he often claimed that he had been shot at and stabbed a few times. In his day John was also a heroin user, fiendish cocaine addict and habitual hash head.

And then there was the booze John Martyn liked a drink in the same way as vampires are partial to sinking their teeth into the creamy white neck of a chaste young girl. John adored drinking and loved pubs, saying they were the only place that lost souls really felt they belonged. Over the years John must have drank colossal amounts of vodka, rum and cider. His friend, the great jazz saxophonist Andy Sheppard, still talks with incredulity of seeing Martyn down a full bottle of Bacardi in one swig as he prepared for a gig. Along with the drugs, the alcohol powered John to amazing artistic achievements in the 1970s but it also scarred him later in life. For over forty years, he played a dangerous game of chance with the demon alcohol. In January 2009 it hacked him down no matter what it says on his death certificate.

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The first time I saw John Martyn play live was in tiny smoke-filled club above the Edinburgh Playhouse in 1980. John was at the top of his game on that sultry summers night, an effortlessly brilliant musician with an engaging stage manner that seemed to reinforce the musical vibe that he was a genuine, gentle peace-loving good guy who wouldnt even talk badly to, never mind harm, a fly. When I mentioned this to a friend who vaguely knew his first wife, the reply was quick and to the point no hes not, hes a complete bastard! This dichotomy between the mild music and the malevolent, wild artiste never left me and a few years back I decided to write a book to try and find out who the real John Martyn was.

I first spoke to John after visiting his hometown in Kilkenny in the summer of 2004. Unable to speak to him during that visit I left a note behind the bar in his local boozer explaining who I was and why I wanted to write his life story. A couple of weeks later my mobile phone rang Hi, its Johnny Martyn, where are you? Stornoway? What the fuck are you doing in Stornoway? I thought you were in Thomastown! I was going to take you for a drink! Once the confusion was cleared up, he agreed to help me and this book is the end result. Along the way I talked to acquaintances who genuinely adored John. His closest friend, Danny Thompson, summed it up best by telling Q in September 1989:

Id do anything for John Martyn: if he phoned me up and said Im in the Pennines and my cars knackered, Id be on my way. It was a blessing from heaven that we were able to rave together so much in the 1970s and live because we lost a lot of friends who raved only half as much. Hes the biggest, softest teddy bear, a generous, warm, sensitive person and he spends a lot of the time covering it up.

By way of complete contrast, one former manager refused to speak to me and sounded genuinely fearful at the mention of Johns name. Before he put the phone down he said:

You must not come to me for praiseworthy things on John Martyn. Ive experienced his darker side much too often. Im not interested in adding to the myth of the man. I dont enjoy talking about John Martyn. If you cannot say something good about somebody, dont say anything. I find it hard to say anything meritorious about John Martyn.