Les Cousins Music and Records info@lescousins.co.uk
www.beverleymartyn.com
Kate Lewis, Acoustic Magazine Issue 35, 2009
Three years managing and producing the legendary Davy Graham definitely shows through in Mark Pavey's debut album. Simplicity is the key here: Pavey's guitar is very delicate and not showy, which is not to say that it is at all amateur, simply perfectly measured and applied, and forms a beautiful accompaniment to Pavey's delicious voice. I was singing along to each one before it had finished on the first listen. His reworking of the traditional `Live Not Where I Love' is particularly impressive, taking something firmly rooted in the folk genre and giving it a fresh twist. Someone to make an effort to see live."
Duck Baker live review, from The Scotsman May 2010 4/5 stars
Like Baker's recent 18th album, the show is called The Roots and Branches of American Music, a summation of what's effectively been his stock-in-trade since his debut release in 1976.
Far from its being any kind of historical or musicological lecture, though, Baker simply led us on an easy-going ramble around some of the myriad vintage and contemporary styles he's made his own, illustrating as much as explaining their evolution and overlap.
He began, for instance, by highlighting the various cross-fertilisations of African, British and Celtic influences on US soil, via a mellow, impish Thelonious Monk blues and a set of Appalachian banjo tunes. Other of the tributaries feeding into both jazz and country music's development were exemplified later on, including bluegrass, ragtime, western swing, gospel and cowboy songs, while those Old Country connections were further underlined by an elegant rendering of a Scott Skinner march, an Irish medley collected a century ago by Francis ONeill in Chicago, and a lyrical, classical-tinged number adapted from a Salif Keita track.
Baker's justly legendary virtuosity on six strings, like his rugged baritone voice, was less an exercise in pristine precision than a masterclass in fully rounded expression, with all the raw-boned directness and organic aural textures much of his material demanded, winningly interwoven with his vast wealth of knowledge and gently barbed humour.
“If there was an award for sheer will-to-win in the pop business it would go this year to an 18 year 0ld singer singer billed simply as Beverley. Just a year ago she came to London and Denny Cordell, who makes discs for Georgie Fame and the Moody Blues, heard her sing in a club. Cordell told me: I offered her a record contract. She is the only person other than Georgie Fame and the Moodies, I’ve wanted to record.
But Beverley told him; ‘I’m going away – I’ll see you when I think I’m ready….’ Beverley went back to her home in Coventry with a guitar – which Denny Laine of the Moody Blues had given her – and learned to play. Now she is rated by Jimmy Page or the Yardbirds, as the ‘best girl guitarist’ he’s heard.”
Here is a typical selection of other cuttings about the lady, proving the press moves in mysterious ways;
“She’s an 18 year old Chelsea-looking brunette from Coventry who has just cut her first record. The title is ‘Happy New Year’ (Deram). “Beverley…wore a cool black satin pyjama suit – with enormous flapping trousers – at London Airport yesterday. To keep away the chill winter breezes she wore a snug fox fur on top. Beverley was flying to Munich to make a broadcast and promote her new record….” She admires Donovan’s interpretations and was particularly thrilled when, in a London club recently, he stepped from the audience and offered to accompany her on guitar.” “Beverley.. claims that at 20 she has at last found her real self thanks to a visit to the Love thy Neighbour hippies of San Francisco. Beverley has just returned from Hippie-land after taking part in the Montray Pop Festival.”
