So I thought, ‘Yes, why not’ .. sing a cover of a great John Martyn song written in 1973 about his friend singer/songwriter Nick Drake who died a year later from an overdose of prescribed anti-depressants. Martin had noticed Drake was withdrawn and barely eating… almost living on air.
I’d seen many of Martyn’s live versions on Youtube.. (Oh how I wish I’d had this facility when I was growing up!)… and Martyn basically made the song arrangement up each night depending on how drunk or coked up he was. I found his special tuning for this song on a recording where he had broken a string and had to re-tune his guitar.
What I did realise during my recording was Martyn’s fantastic vocal range; deep rolling bass notes that climbed to high falsettos. He was famous for his ‘slurring’ delivery where all the words and pronunciation became entangled but his delivery is unique to him and I wanted to sing my version not a pastiche Martyn vocal.
Well here is the result! I’m not completely thrilled by this attempt but I posted it on YouTube anyway because you can never fail if you never try..
Paul A. McKendrick UK 
Well, really. Was that so terribly hard? You wrote a brief, concise piece packed with meaty little facts about a singer and his song. When I listened to John Martyn’s ’73 recording, I was able to listen “intelligently” (somewhat) because of your description of the song’s origin, and your break-down of his vocal uniqueness.
That in mind, you shared your interpretation, picking and choosing the portions you wanted to incorporate into yours. I like your version much better because, for one thing, you chose to leave out the slurring!
All things considered, if this “pointless” blog finds its weathervane swinging towards musical overtones, it would be no great surprise. After all, someone said you write about what you know :)))
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A lovely comment Marty and so full of positive encouragement. Thank you ever so much. …I might do some more video at some point!! x
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