Solid Air: The Life of John Martyn [Kindle Edition]

Chris Nickson preaches the gospel of John Martyn and in my case he's preaching to the converted. His love for the big man is evident and he writes from the heart with a simple, direct and conversational approach. I'm dead envious...this is the book I would love to have written about one of my heroes.

Nickson's analysis of each track on every album is both insightful and unflinchingly honest; he certainly doesn't pull his punches when it comes to assessing some of John's shortcomings, musically or otherwise. But overall I think the Guv'nor would probably have agreed with some of the sentiments (assuming that he had been feeling suitably amenable).

John's forty-two year recording career spanned sixty-nine albums if you include all of the many compilations and live albums, and his career had more trajectory curves than a test-match bowler. However Nickson manages to get beneath the skin of the man and paint a comprehensive portrait that goes far beyond the usual lazy canon of stories and reminiscences.

I have a couple of other biographies of John (Lee Barry and John Neil Monroe) but I feel that this version is better than either of those because it feels more personal, more heart-felt. However the fact that Nickson seems to love the songs that I do (Just Now, Hurt in your Heart, Spencer the Rover and the obvious Solid Air) probably helps the connection.

In his acknowledgements Nickson says that "this is a book I'd always imagined writing, but I never believed anyone would want to publish". Well from my perspective this is a book I'd always imagined reading but couldn't believe anyone would ever write. From the bottom of my heart my thanks go out to Chris Nickson.

I freely admit to being one of those John Martyn fans who'd forgive him almost anything for those moments of utterly sublime music, so you could say that I was already set to enjoy this biography. However, there are music biographies that are simply a dry catalogue of work and others that reveal their subjects in such an off-putting light it stains the music, so I was a little apprehensive about what I would read.

What I found was a beautifully-written, lucid account of the man and the musician - not always, as Nickson reminds us, a comfortable mix. Far from detracting from the music, Nickson's analysis made me revisit the albums with renewed interest and enjoyment. John Martyn was just sixty when he died, but reading this biography made me keenly aware of how very young he was, just seventeen, when his professional career began and how much music he packed into his life.