In Focus: John Martyn

John Martyn, known to his family as Iain David McCready, first rose to prominence in the British folk revival scene of the mid-1960s, alongside artists like Nick Drake and Fairport Convention. "Folk" was a label Martyn always rejected, and his expansive style reflected this – there are touches of Debussy in his compositions, and his echoplex-led sustained notes were famously inspired by jazz artist Pharoah Sanders. It's perhaps ironic that Martyn's music was often so delicate - he was not. A notorious carouser, Martyn drank, and fought, and badly mistreated the women and children in his life. To enjoy his music, is to wrestle with the idea that the art that spills from the artist is often at odds with the life they lived.