Beverley Martyn, the spirited British folk singer known for her collaborations with former husband John Martyn and her sublime solo work, has died at the age of 79. A statement from the family of the late John Martyn confirmed the news, announcing that she passed away peacefully at home on Monday. The statement described her as "a remarkable woman of great inner strength," adding that she was "beautiful, intelligent, warm and kind."
Born Beverley Kutner near Coventry in 1947, she moved to London in her mid-teens to attend drama school and quickly immersed herself in the city's flourishing folk music scene of the early 1960s. She learned to play guitar from British folk legend Bert Jansch, who was an early boyfriend.
Her early career included a single with her band, the Levee Breakers, titled Babe I'm Leaving You, a stridently jangling track. She also recorded solo songs, including the enduring Happy New Year, a fuzz-guitar romp written by Randy Newman. The session musicians featured a pre-Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. Page later remarked: "It was a remarkable session. At the time it was recorded, I knew that she was a shining talent in the world of performance and songwriting." Another single, Museum, was written by Donovan.
During her time in London, she became romantically involved with Paul Simon, describing him in a 2014 Guardian interview as having "a Napoleon complex. Very intelligent. Moody, but witty." She travelled with him to perform at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, a culture-shifting event where Jimi Hendrix famously set his guitar on fire. She also briefly appeared on the Simon & Garfunkel album Bookends, which reached No. 1 in both the US and UK.
After becoming a single mother to a son, Wesley, from another relationship, she met John Martyn in 1969 and soon married him. Immersed in the folk-rock counterculture in the US, they recorded a duo album, Stormbringer!, in 1969 in Woodstock. The album featured the Band's Levon Helm on drums and was produced by Joe Boyd. It was released in 1970, and later that year they recorded and released another album, The Road to Ruin. Its opening track, Primrose Hill, would later be sampled by Fatboy Slim.
Beverley also became acquainted with British folk star Nick Drake, who would babysit for her children. They wrote a song together, Reckless Jane, which Beverley completed in 2014.
She and John had two children of their own, but after he pursued his solo career, she said in 2014: "My career was over. I had my hands full. I did the odd gig with John, and the odd one on my own, but I had no future." Their marriage soured as John struggled with alcohol and drugs, becoming paranoid and threatening. She later reflected: "There was love there – it was the drink and the bad drugs, the very heavy ones, that changed his disposition, and they made life unbearable for anyone around him. I wouldn't stay with a man who was killing himself."
She escaped the marriage and moved to Brighton, making music fitfully with artists such as Loudon Wainwright III and Wilko Johnson. However, it was not until her 2014 solo album, The Phoenix and the Turtle, that she made a more emphatic return. She said of that project: "It was a great relief to finally do something on my own terms. That was a dream I'd almost given up on." That would be her final collection of new material, though in 2018 she released a compilation of her 1960s songs entitled Where the Good Times Are.
