“One World” by John Martyn - album review

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TJR says

With his ninth long-player the 29-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist underlined that affecting music wasn’t to be the sole preserve of the Punks and Rastas in ’77; witness exhibit A, his classy and soulful “Couldn’t Love You More”, a song which prevailed as a live staple for him, in the decades which followed. This was the second album of his to find its way into my collection following 1973s “Solid Air”. Love, sex and death remain his topics of choice, delivered interestingly on this occasion in a variety of styles, often on trippy, dubby beds. Lee Perry, of all people, pops up for one of the tracks, “Big Muff”, the result of an invitation to John by Island founder Chris Blackwell to visit Jamaica. Music’s connecting lines never cease to amaze. It was, in fact, this trip which helped Martyn regain his mojo after a 30 months hiatus, and the creativity flowed in the Berkshire downs where he was hosted by Blackwell and connected with Stevie Winwood, who played a key role throughout. In their 2009 obituary, with this album very much in mind, the Times called him the father of trip-hop. It's not a bad epitaph to have.

The Jukebox Rebel
05–Mar–2016

Tracklist
A1 [03:07] 8.2.png John Martyn - Couldn’t Love You More (John Martyn) Folk
A2 [03:52] 6.2.png John Martyn - Certain Surprise (John Martyn) Jazz
A3 [03:43] 7.8.png John Martyn - Dancing (John Martyn) Cerebral Pop
A4 [08:45] 5.4.png John Martyn - Small Hours (John Martyn) Film Score / Incidental
B1 [04:58] 4.9.png John Martyn - Dealer (John Martyn) Disco / Funk
B2 [04:10] 4.2.png John Martyn - One World (John Martyn) Jazz
B3 [03:29] 5.9.png John Martyn - Smiling Stranger (John Martyn) Dubbeat
B4 [06:30] 5.6.png John Martyn - Big Muff (John Martyn, Lee Perry) Dubbeat

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