John Martyn, Postscript

As Island Records releases remastered versions of John Martyn's classic albums, I've slowly replaced some of my favorites. As more and more people abandon CDs for downloads, the window of opportunity to buy CDs at reasonable prices gets smaller and smaller, and once they've gone out of print (again), prices start climbing. I missed the boat replacing some old reggae albums, and now used copies are big bucks. Same with NRBQ (I assumed that being on Rounder Records would give NRBQ unlimited shelf life -- not so much!)

So I sprung for the 2009 remaster of probably John Martyn's best, most consistent album, "Solid Air". Sounds great, of course, but there's a second disc of alternate takes, live tracks and unreleased-until-now bonus tracks. (Island has taken this to extremes lately -- there's like a 17-disc Martyn box with somewhere close to 3 hours of bonus material. Even if I did win the lottery, I'd have to devote the rest of my life to listening to it all.) That being said, there are 2 bonus tracks on the "Solid Air" set that I really enjoy: "In the Evening" and especially "When It's Dark", 8:36 of pure perfection. I have no idea why it wasn't included on earlier versions of "Solid Air", maybe because you can hear the germ of another song that ended up on John's next album. Whatever the reason, I certainly glad it finally made its appearance.

"The Tumbler" was John's second album, and there's no remaster yet. For me, it illustrates "you can't go home again". It's a nice album, but having followed John's career since, it's a bit light and unfinished compared to where he went later. I think if I'd heard it when it initially came out, I'd hear it with more nostalgic affection, and the blemishes would be endearing rather than slightly uncomfortable. Still, it was nice to hear on some of our beautiful summer days lately.