From: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.music.misc
Subject: Re: Moon Martin/John Martyn
Date: 16 Dec 92 16:30:54 GMT
Reply-To: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Organization: Heurikon Corporation, Madison, WI

ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman) writes:
>Did Moon ever do anything other than the wonderful 1979 album "Escape
>from Domination"?  I seem to recall that at one time Capital was 
>hyping this guy pretty heavily, but obviously his career never took
>off.  Too bad, because "Escape from Domination" works just fine -
>great hooks, catchy choruses, and that long-gone seventies power pop 
>sound that would do Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe and NRBQ proud.   
>Does anybody else remember this guy or know what happened to him?

Let's see - two more LPs after that that I can think of - "Mystery
Ticket" produced on a favor by Bobby Palmer, and "Street Fever". 
Both on Capitol. Martin's always been on my "Why do I like this guy?"
list; his voice is dweeby in the extreme, his lyrics wind up being
either stupid or misogynist a fair amount of the time, but the stuff
is *ferociously* addictive, with the possible exception of the ballads,
which make me ill. You've got the most consistent album, Andrew - the
other two are, in my jaded opinion, considerably more uneven, although
there are maybe a couple of cuts on each that I'd put right up there
with some of the "EfD" work. Last I heard, Moon was doing session work
in LA.

>And why does John insist on releasing these overblown synth-dominated
>albums?  He's one of the finest folk singers and most inventive guitarists 
>ever to come out of Scotland (pick up "Solid Air" or "Sunday's Child" if 
>you don't believe me), but the couple of eighties albums that I've
>heard have left me cold.  Has he released any folk-oriented material
>in the last ten years or so that compares to "Solid Air" or "Sunday's
>Child"?

Hmm. Probably he's playing it careful after the revival of interest in
his work under the producer's hand of Phil Collins (that's the stuff 
you don't like, right?). Nope, there's nothing like the early stuff
yet. It helps me to think of them as two completely different performers
with similar voices. I've seen John live a couple of years ago, and
he did put on a *wonderful* show of all that overblown stuff, though.
It wasn't clear, but I'd have sworn he was just about too messed up
(alcohol?) to really play. Sure leaned into it, though. He did do a
live version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" solo that was lovely, and
there was a woman in from of me screaming for "May You Never" about
every other tune. He didn't oblige.

>Any information would be appreciated.  For that matter, any information
>on Mary Martin, Dean Martin, Rowan and Martin, Martin Luther, or Martina 
>Navratilova would be great too.  Thanks.

Mary, Luther, Rowan are all dead. Neither Dean nor Martina are in the 
game anymore, though someone released a pretty nice compilation recordings
from the days when Dean could still sing.



--
The law moves quickly in the rain/and chokes the world with memorials./The
courts accept the lowest superstition/into evidence. And we embrace quickly in
the rain,/conceiving a hale infant with hands to wrinkle/the bedsheets toward
it, wave by trough by wave./Gregory Taylor/Heurikon /Madison, WI/608-828-3385