Iain David McGeachy, OBE (11 September 1948 – 29 January 2009), known professionally as John Martyn, was a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. Over a 40-year career, he released 22 studio albums, and received frequent critical acclaim. He was one of the most revered and innovative singer-songwriters of his generation; his music – a mix of blues, folk and funk – influenced artists as varied as U2, Portishead and Eric Clapton.
John Martyn was born Ian David McGeachy on September 11 1948
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at New Malden, Surrey. His parents, both singers of light opera, divorced when he was five and he spent much of his childhood in Glasgow, where he lived with his grandmother and attended Shawlands Academy.
Having taught himself the guitar at the age of 15, he returned to London on leaving school and appeared regularly at Les Cousins, the Soho folk club which also launched Ralph McTell, Bert Jansch and Al Stewart. He became the first white act to be signed to Chris Blackwell's Island record label, and recorded his debut album, London Conversation, for £158 in 1968. He began to experiment with electronic effects, notably a tape device known as the Echoplex, which provided his signature sound, and which he introduced on his second album Stormbringer! in 1970.
Martyn sealed his reputation with his album, Solid Air, described as the "musical equivalent of a reassuring hug" by Q Magazine, which named it the 67th best British album of all time in 2000. Martyn dedicated the haunting title track to his friend Nick Drake, another singer-songwriter, who died of an overdose at the age of 26 shortly after it was finished.
Over the next few years Martyn slid into alcoholism, his live performances punctuated by moments of incoherent drunkenness. Drugs took a toll on his personal life, and his first marriage broke up in the late 1970s. This darkest period in his life found artistic expression in the despairing, autobiographical Grace and Danger, which was finally released in 1980 after Chris Blackwell had initially blocked it because he thought it was too upsetting and personal. Martyn himself described the record as "cathartic". Yet it yielded a restoration in his fortunes, and subsequent albums – Glorious Fool (1981), produced by Phil Collins, and Well Kept Secret (1982) – were the highest-charting records of his career.
Since losing a leg, Martyn had performed from a wheelchair but did not repine. "If I could control myself more, I think the music would be much less interesting," he told Q Magazine. "I'd probably be a great deal richer, but I'd have had far less fun and I'd be making really dull music."
His cantankerous behaviour was famous, and age did not appear to mellow him or diminish his interest in expanding the horizons of music and making musical boundaries redundant. Early on in his career he proved himself one of the most brilliant acoustic guitarists of his generation, but he was never content to rest on his laurels, taking his guitar-playing into constantly new directions, even at the cost of his commercial appeal.
He was presented with a lifetime achievement award by Phil Collins at the 2008 BBC Folk Awards, when he sang May You Never, backed by John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. Eric Clapton sent a message saying he was "so far ahead of everything else it was inconceivable". Martyn joked: "At last I'm a celebrity."
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He was appointed OBE in the 2009 New Year Honours. Martyn died on 29 January 2009, in hospital in Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland, after a third bout with pneumonia.
John Martyn's marriage to the blues singer Beverley Kutner in 1969 ended in divorce after 10 years, and his second wife, Annie, predeceased him. (Edited from The Telegraph)