Beverley Martyn

The Island Years is the most exhaustive career retrospective from one of Britain’s most original and enduring singer/songwriters. Housed in an LP size hard-back slip case, this lavish box set including: 17 CDs featuring 12 key studio albums, recorded for Island between 1967 and 1987, now with previously unreleased mixes, Out-Takes, unheard songs and 2 complete, previously unreleased live solo concerts from 1972 and 1977 and the complete demos for The Apprentice, the last album Martyn delivered to Island. A hard-back book featuring a new essay by The Island Years compiler and researcher John Hillarby plus rare and previously unseen photographs and extensive memorabilia.

Bless the Weather is a 1971 album by John Martyn and marks his return as a solo artist having released two albums with his wife Beverley Martyn. When it was released it garnered his best reviews to date, and remains a firm favourite among fans, featuring such standards as "Head and Heart" and the title track. The album is predominantly acoustic, although it does feature Martyn's first real 'echoplex' track in "Glistening Glyndebourne". Q magazine chose Bless the Weather among the dozen essential folk albums of all time in 1999. According to Q the album was recorded in just three days. In November 2007 Bless the Weather was included in a list by The Guardian newspaper entitled '1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die'.

Head and Heart – The Acoustic John Martyn’ is a 35 track - 2CD set which captures John at his intimate best. It contains key album tracks from his 1967 debut album, ‘London Conversation’ through to 1977s ‘One World’ and ends with a live version of “Patterns In The Rain” which he performed live at the Island Records 25th Birthday Party in 1987. As well as containing many of his best known songs it also features 4 Previously Unreleased recordings including 3 demo versions of songs recorded at the sessions for 1968s ‘The Tumbler’ and the long lost Old Grey Whistle Test performance of “Bless The Weather” from 1971. The sleeve notes are by respected writer Mick Houghton, author of the Sandy Denny biography ‘I’ve Always Kept A Unicorn’.

2006 CD featuring all 16 of the surviving sessions this Scottish-born Folk legend recorded for the Bob Harris and John Peel radio programs at the BBC between 1973 and 1978. Martyn began his career as a teen in the late '60s and has become one of the most innovative and influential artists to come from the original British Folk scene. Features rare versions of tracks from his Inside Out, Solid Air, Sunday's Child and One World albums including 'Inside', 'Beverley', 'May You Never', 'Fine Lines', 'My Baby Girl', 'Over the Hill', 'One Day (Without You)' and more.

Beverley Martyn was 18 and an eminent part of the British Folk scene when in 1966 she was the first artist to be signed to producer Denny Cordell’s production company, set up with music publisher David Platz. Denny assembled London’s elite session musicians – Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Nicky Hopkins, John Renbourn, Mike Lease, Alan White – who fuelled Beverley’s songs and also tackled some choice Blues covers (Me and My Gin; Stormy Monday Blues) adding a couple of Donovan songs in the mix too.

2010 two CD compilation that charts the story of Folk music in the UK from Martin Carthy, who equivalent to Bob Dylan in the US, is the pioneer of the UK Folk revival, through Fairport Convention and the Folk Rock movement, right up to contemporary artists carrying on the rich tradition such as Noah And the Whale, who reached #5 in the UK Album charts. Whether you're drinking cider in the sun at a festival or just interested in getting to know some of the pioneers and artists that have made folk what it is today and influenced the last 40 years of popular music in Britain. 38 tracks. Spectrum.

More than any other 60s music biography Joe Boyd's 'White Bicycles' offers the real story of what it was like to be there at the time. When the summer of love got going, Joe was running the coolest club in London, the UFO; when a bunch of club regulars called Pink Floyd recorded their first single, Joe was the producer; when a young songwriter named Nick Drake wanted to give his demo tape to someone, he chose Joe Boyd. This unique CD gathers together the full range of production work undertaken by Joe Boyd and his Witchseason production company, including several rare and previously unreleased recordings. Recordings have been licensed from all the major record labels. White Bicycles is released with full approval and co-operation from Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, Eric Clapton and the Nick Drake Estate; as well as EMI, Universal, Warners, Topic and Sony BMG. Carefully remastered. Cover artwork by Nigel Weymouth. Deluxe digipac with full-colour large format booklet. Extensive sleevenotes by Joe Boyd. Previously unpublished photographs and rare ephemera. "This CD is a magical and insighftful overview of music making in late 1960s London in one discrete package."

Most casual onlookers don't remember it today, but there was a time when Island Records was well known as the home of numerous varieties of music beyond classic reggae and the 1980s work of U2. In fact, from 1967 until the early/mid-'70s, Island was one of the major outlets for progressive and art rock bands in England. The label didn't have much of a presence in the United States until the second half of the 1970s, and many of the groups that it had under contract only released their work through Island in England, with major acts such as Jethro Tull, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer having separate contractual relationships with Warner/Reprise and Atlantic in the United States.