GROOVE ARCHIVE
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Solid Air

Folk / Country / British folk · 1973

Solid Air

John Martyn

Why listen

A song-based record whose bass, saxophone, vibraphone and changing guitar-related textures give each arrangement a distinct musical shape.

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Tracks · previews

English editorial edition

Album story

The opening of Solid Air is more than a portrait of one singer holding a guitar. Bass, saxophone and vibraphone help reveal John Martyn’s music as a relationship between players. Over the Hill immediately changes that impression through a different combination of instruments. The album’s range emerges through arrangements, not just through labels attached to its style.

Released in 1973, the album was co-produced by Martyn and John Wood. The selected remaster contains the original nine songs followed by a live version of I’d Rather Be the Devil. The studio recording is track four; the added performance is track ten. This essay concerns the original nine-song sequence. The title song was written for Nick Drake during his lifetime, rather than composed as a memorial after his death.

Different instruments share the opening

The title track features Danny Thompson’s double bass, Tony Coe’s saxophone and Tristan Fry’s vibraphone. Use those credits as listening directions rather than as a checklist of genres. Follow the low movement, sustained struck tones and wind-shaped melody in turn. The musicians do not all perform the same supporting function. Their different ways of occupying time can be heard before every word of the lyric is understood.

The second song changes the ensemble

Over the Hill brings in Richard Thompson on mandolin, Simon Nicol on autoharp and Sue Draheim on violin. Applying the opening track’s personnel to the whole album would miss this change. Its shorter duration also matters: a song lasting under three minutes follows an opener approaching six. Listen for both continuity in the singer and a fresh beginning in the arrangement.

Ensemble spontaneity and studio completion

The players recalled building performances together, but that does not mean every sound on the completed record was captured simultaneously. Wood also described subsequent work on vocals. These recollections let ensemble interaction and studio construction coexist. Continue through the original closing Easy Blues before approaching the added live performance. Context, instrumentation and sequence are more informative here than treating a familiar song title as a guarantee of an identical recording.

The album through its tracks

Compare the ensembles and durations of Solid Air and Over the Hill; hear the original nine-track ending before the live supplement.

  1. Solid Air

    The approximately five-minute-forty-four-second opener was written for Nick Drake during his lifetime. Introducing it as a song composed after his death reverses the chronology. That background need not predetermine one emotional interpretation. Follow Danny Thompson’s double bass, Tony Coe’s saxophone and Tristan Fry’s vibraphone around the singing. One pass might focus on low movement, another on sustained struck sounds or the wind instrument’s line. Several instruments need not make the music difficult to follow; distinguishing their functions can clarify its shape. Continue into Over the Hill afterwards to hear how the sound established by this extended opening gives way to another instrumental combination.

    Reference · John Martyn official: original Solid Air programme and credits

  2. Over the Hill

    At approximately two minutes fifty-two seconds, the second track introduces mandolin, autoharp and violin, credited respectively to Richard Thompson, Simon Nicol and Sue Draheim. Do not expect the opening song’s instrumentation simply to continue. Follow plucked sounds and sustained lines around the vocal without turning listening into an instrument-identification examination. Distinguishing short attacks from longer movement already reveals something about the arrangement. Duration also changes the scale: a compact song follows a much more extended opening, while the singer supplies continuity. Heard together, these tracks make musical breadth a matter of actual instrumental combinations and song dimensions rather than the number of genre names one can attach to them.

    Reference · John Martyn official: original Solid Air programme and credits

Listen next

Compare Bert Jansch’s debut to hear how guitar-centred songs develop in solo performance and in arrangements shared by several players.

Bert Jansch ↗
References & editorial note

Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.