Say What You Can

One of the genuinely complicated and conflicting things about writing, especially writing non-fiction, is this: what to do with a blackguard.

Writing my book in a vaguely linear fashion, this week I embarked on my first chapter: looking at music that anticipates, inspires, and generally provides the context for [post-rock] to develop. John Martyn was a pioneer of delay; and ‘Small Hours’, from 1977’s One World album, features his Echoplex heavily. It also contains a subtle dub influence (recording followed a trip to Jamaica, during which Martyn jammed ‘n’ nattered with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Burning Spear, and Max Romeo). ‘Small Hours’ is lengthy and ambient, recorded on a farm under the influence of opium, with sounds of the lake swirling and geese rambling. It is an immense thing, with many sonic elements that prove important later on.

Like most battered wives, I was too ashamed to tell anybody what was happening. Only the doctor in Hastings knew the full extent of my injuries […] At times I thought I was going to die.

The above quote is from Beverley Martyn, who details in her harrowing autobiography Sweet Honesty the cruelty she suffered while married to John. The abuse was emotional and financial, too. It was not solely that he hit or threatened her when off his face or wound up (although he seemed to do a lot of that). It was a deliberate and systematic stripping away of her selfhood.

Before her marriage to John in 1969, Beverley had a promising career. It’s not fanciful to think she may have developed into a Vashti Bunyan or a Carole King (or, indeed, a John Martyn). This is a great early self-penned B-side.

Stormbringer! was going to be her debut album. Beverley was already working with Joe Boyd, while John was a hired guitarist on it (isn’t that nice, they’re newlyweds after all, how lovely to play together). But the record was meant to be her voice, her vision. Hers.

Instead, it was the start of the John Martyn show. Stormbringer! soon contained more John than Beverley and, unbeknownst to her at the time, he took 75 per cent of the royalties. With the second John and Beverley album, The Road To Ruin (released later in the year) the same trick was performed and intensified; John blatantly used it as a leg-up to his solo career.

There’s no doubt the music world has benefitted from John's behaviour. The brilliantly innovative John Martyn album run for Island throughout the 1970s is often compared to the classic Tim Buckley stretch (Happy Sad to Starsailor). But what did Beverley Martyn do during this time? She stayed at home, looked after the children, lived under a blanket of fear and violence. Her own formidable creativity was smashed.

 

One might, and people frequently do, try to circumnavigate all this. You’re judging the art, it is argued, not the life. This is seen in (re)assessments of Phil Spector, Michael Jackson, and Roman Polanski. In 2006, when Heather Mills alleged Paul McCartney had been violent towards her, and withheld the help she needed as a woman with a disability, she was mostly vilified and written off. Not our Macca! Let’s just listen to ‘Paperback Writer’ again! Ahhhh. That’s better.

Is it the business of critics to condemn the behaviour of artists? I’d say it is not, and I'd wager most critics who aren't Richard Littlejohn would say the same. But the awkward fact remains: by ignoring something, we can tacitly approve of it. What often happens then is firing at easy targets in order to prove we're not massive bastards. Simple to pass judgement on people like Gary Glitter and Ian Watkins, right? Their crimes are huge and their music is awful. It all becomes a bit like this: drug use and/or mental illness = good artistry! Paedophilia = bad artistry!

 

Domestic abuse = let’s judge depending on what we think of the music! James Brown’s multiple arrests for domestic violence are seldom brought up in critical commentary. However, although Chris Brown sells by the truckload, he’s not the critics’ pal. Thus, his attack on Rihanna is frequently mentioned.

 

Here’s the thing: we can’t have it both ways. If we’re fascinated by how Ian Curtis’s depression informs his work, we can’t step away from how John Martyn’s abuse of Beverley informs his. What drives people to great art can be the same as (or at least linked to) their drive to cause pain in their immediate sphere.

We should, at least, give Beverley the respect to acknowledge that.