Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn

Subject: LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:07 PM

So, the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD went to JOHN MARTYN

and not the Spinners .......... mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Subject: RE: LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
From: LesB
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:21 PM

Yea, I think its awarded for suviving years of self abuse.
Cheers (hic)
Les

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 12:54 PM

Steady Les, we don't want to start an argument or serious disagreement here, do we?

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: LesB
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:38 PM

Heaven forfend.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:41 PM

Anyway I have to go to Party and I bet by the time I get back all difficulties will bee resolved and those who thought other people, maybe The Spinners, should get one will be convinced of John's overwhelming contribution to erm .......... folk will be proven.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Feb 08 - 02:42 PM

"Lifetime awards" always make me think of the old exchange:

"Have you lived here all your life?"

"Not yet."

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 12:46 PM

Have I missed a whole chunk of achievement?

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 02:38 PM

I'd like to see Derek Brimstone get an award. He's probably done more folk club gigs than John Martyn and the Spinners put together.

Also he's been very influential.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 03:14 PM

I couldn't agree more, WLD.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 04:10 AM

I guess some people will feel the Spinners generated on odd slant on folk music but I don't think it can be denied that they drew in and influenced a lot of people.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 04:23 AM

I didn't use to like them when I was young. I thought they were a bit wet, and their audiences were old and weird looking.

Then I got old an weird looking, and ever since then....no its no use, I still don't feel I'd fit in. they'd sus me out. I'd be denounced for not singing Abiyoyo with sufficient vim.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 05:48 AM

One problem was this did a bit of everything so annoyed lots of purists. They also were not scarely good at anything. They didn't have a regional base to their songs because they came from an international sea port. They did make us sing lots of silly songs but they were a major influence on the popularization of whatever "folk" is. In terms of numbers of people influenced I think they deserve a Lifetimer!

Cheers

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 08:33 AM

Am I the only person that doesn't get it ? John Martyn ? what's he got to do with folk music ? He's a fairly good contemporary guitarist and singer but certainly not folk.

eric

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 09:34 AM

All depends what you mean by folk I suppose(joke)

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 09:39 AM

He sang spencer the Rover once. May you never turns up in folk clubs,now and then.

Its not really about folk music though, is it? Its about the music industry and they wouldn't know folk music if it bit their bum.

I'd give The Spinners an award for doing The Bleacher Lass of Kelvinhaugh on Pebble Mill at One. You won't hear that song on daytime telly again and even in them days nobody else would have done it on telly.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: GUEST,Graham Bradshaw
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 10:32 AM

Well, Robin Hall & Jimmie MacGregor did it on telly - same vintage I suppose.

Back then, a lot more folky things were accepted on TV than now.

Getting back to the thread, John Martyn DID used to play in the folk clubs occasionally in the 60s. Well, he certainly played at 'our' folk club - Assembly Rooms Surbiton - but that was probably more to do with the fact that he lived round the corner and could stagger there. Also, he wrote songs and played clever guitar, which sort of qualified him as vaguely folk back then. Oh, yeah, and his ex-wife Beverley used to sing in the folk clubs in Coventry. (the slenderest of connections will do, you know).

Which is a bit how it is now really - all comes round full circle if you wait long enough.

Whilst I'm a huge admirer of much of his work, he has sod all to do with folk IMO.

Graham

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 12:18 PM

Well, not at lot more to be said really.

What would a Lifetime Achievement consist of?

1. A long term contribution to "Folk"
2. Quality
3. Influence
4. Innovation within a living tradition? (This could be a bit it dodgy)
5.Taking "Folk" to a wider audience

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 12:29 PM

Shouldn't it also ideally be either posthumous - or at least post-retirement?

Les - I like your number four above. Just need to find this 'ere living tradition to be innovative within! Meanwhile, I can think of a fair few excellent artists who are 'innovative within a dying tradition'...

Actually though, there is such a glut of excellent young musicians and players concentrating on traditional music that it's not inconcievable that some of them might start to write new songs in the style of the traditional. You know, a whole bunch of people taking a leaf out of the book of, say, Chris Wood, for example...

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: GUEST,Nigel spencer cookieless
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 12:30 PM

Yikes! That was me.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: cptsnapper
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 01:58 PM

I think that John Martyn should have recorded with Johnny Booker of Barnsley Lads fame! Vocal styles not so different after all but of the two I prefer the latter.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 02:03 PM

How about:

What would a Lifetime Achievement consist of?

1. Quality
2. A long term contribution to Folk
3. Influence within a living tradition?
4. Influence within the Folk world
4. Influence on the general public

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 02:04 PM

Sorry cannot count:

What would a Lifetime Achievement consist of?

1. Quality
2. A long term contribution to Folk
3. Influence within a living tradition?
4. Influence within the Folk world
5. Influence on the general public

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 02:12 PM

Who wants that crap anyway.I dont,its almost as bad as being given an MBE,a real sign that you are part of the establishment.
I would rather listen to JohnFahey than JohnMartyn.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 02:40 PM

John Fahey!

Ah, NOW you're talking, Dick!

Cheers

Nigel

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 02:43 PM

I find it difficult to disagree with you Captain, but all of us who sing in public, however rarely and for some of us however indifferently, we are all bringing folk music to the public.

If Awards raise the interest of the public and people who go rarely to a folk event then it is no bad thing. Perhaps they don't make much difference but then most things don't.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 05:32 PM

...don't make much difference, but then most things don't.

That'd go well on a T-shirt.

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: redsnapper
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 05:58 PM

I've listened to him since the beginning. A deserved recognition for an excellent musician and songwriter.

RS

Subject: RE: Lifetime Achievement Award - John Martyn
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Feb 08 - 06:40 PM

Ok I'll order the shirts and mugs