JOHN MARTYN : SWEET LITTLE MYSTERIES - THE ISLAND ANTHOLOGY

 

Disc One (78:52)

  1. Bless the Weather
  2. Head and Heart
  3. Glistening Glyndebourne
  4. Solid Air
  5. Over the Hill
  6. Don't Want to Know
  7. I'd Rather Be the Devil
  8. May You Never
  9. Fine Lines
  10. Eibhli Ghail Chiuin Ni Chearbhaill
  11. Make No Mistake
  12. One Day Without You
  13. Lay It All Down
  14. Root Love
  15. Sunday's Child
  16. Spencer the Rover
  17. You Can Discover
  18. Call Me Crazy

Disc Two (75:29)

  1. Couldn't Love You More
  2. Certain Surprise
  3. Dancing
  4. Small Hours
  5. Dealer
  6. One World
  7. Some People Are Crazy
  8. Looking On
  9. Johnny Too Bad
  10. Sweet Little Mystery
  11. Hurt in Your Heart
  12. Baby Please Come Home
  13. Sapphire
  14. Fisherman's Dream
  15. Angeline
  16. Send Me One Line

Label : Island

Release Year : 1995

Review (AllMusic) : John Martyn was Island Records' first white solo performer. Having debuted as a fresh-faced teenage folky with 1967's London Conversation, he soon embarked on a restless musical odyssey. Built on a foundation of folk, blues, and jazz, Martyn's music has ranged from effects-laden experimentation, through rock, to fusion-influenced pop. This overview of Martyn's Island recordings ignores his first two albums and two releases with then-wife Beverley, picking up with Bless the Weather (1971). Although ornate love songs from that record like "Head and Heart" remain close to Martyn's traditionalist roots, the instrumental "Glistening Glyndebourne" shows he was keen to distance himself from the Donovan-Cat Stevens orbit of twee folk-pop. Solid Air, 1973's sublime follow-up, is well represented here. On it, Martyn moved effortlessly among light acoustic tunes ("Over the Hill"), darker, jazzier numbers ("Solid Air," his ode to friend Nick Drake), and gizmo-enhanced excursions (his rendering of Skip James' "I'd Rather Be the Devil"). Martyn pursued his experimental inclinations further with the jazz-folkadelic Inside Out (1973); that album's adventurous spirit is captured by the gently droning "Eibhli Ghail Chiuin Ni Chearbhaill," which reworks a 19th century Celtic folk tune with such late 20th century rock tools as a fuzzbox and phase-shifter. Sunday's Child (1974) returned to a more focused song format, as demonstrated by the mournful "Spencer the Rover." Martyn's next studio venture, One World (1977), combined chilled-out moodscapes ("Small Hours") with slick, adult-oriented pop and rock ("Dancing"), the latter tendency even more prominent on Grace & Danger (1980) and exemplified by the delicate "Sweet Little Mystery." While Martyn's later Island releases were less memorable, those mid-'80s numbers collected here hold up well. This album provides a great introduction to John Martyn; its only weakness is the omission of his earliest efforts, a sampling of which would give a fuller sense of his work's evolution.