the musical box
-
Songsmith Steve Marriott exploring tenderness with Humble Pie
I only had one Humble Pie record in my collection. It was the single "Black Coffee", which I'd seen them perform on The Old Grey Whistle Test. The singer, Steve Marriott, was in great voice. Then I did something which happens so rarely now : I flipped it over to see what they put on the B-side. I was expecting another soulful rock tune and I got "Say No More", a song which stopped me in my tracks with its tenderness and desperation. This song opens the Songsmiths series about tunes which continue to play on our inner juke box.
-
The John Martyn & Danny Thompson Moment
At Reading Festival in 1973, I saw John Martyn play live with Danny Thompson. The music came from a place I didn't know existed. I was seeing Martyn play his acoustic guitar but I was hearing sounds that didn't match. The music from the guitar came in waves, an alien language with more than one voice speaking at once. Only two musicians on stage but they sounded like more. And John's voice was anything but ordinary, like someone emerging from deep sleep, a prolonged period in zero gravity or a night on the razzle. Let me try and tell you the story.
