Music in the Seventies

Music in my Life: Part Three.

The 70s.

Pip Martin and Jim Stevenson
in Wiltshire.

My first proper teaching job was in Wiltshire on Salisbury Plain: not exactly a focus for the avant garde, but I played every week in duos at pubs and folk clubs, honing a few dozen songs that almost won us a tour of Scandinavia. The trouble was that we all had jobs and families. I was playing finger-in-the-ear type folk-songs while listening to Weather Report, Oregon and Pat Metheney; all fusion bands. 

I was absolutely hooked on John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra (later Shakti), featuring John’s runaway electric guitar riffs (like Jimi Hendrix meets Carlos Santana, at double pace) and a very tight band of European, American and Indian musicians. Then, on hearing Jaco Pastorius playing his fretless bass with Weather Report, I really didn’t want to hear anything else for years. These were not aberrations that you could share in the relatively straight folk world.

It was my younger brother Alex who introduced me to the music of Steely Dan. They were an American band that merged jazz, pop and blues. The jazz purists hated them for being pop and the pop people hated them for being jazz, but I had a weakness for that kind of thing. Sadly I never saw them and I still don’t have “Aja” or “Pretzel Logic” on vinyl, which is the way I heard them first. 

Jaco Pastorius

While teaching I took courses in music and eventually took a degree in art and music from the Open University. I found the 20th century composers really interesting, though hard to listen to. My tastes became even more eclectic as a result. I listened to everything from Stockhausen to Fairport Convention.

I joined a band called Marvo the Magician and stretched my playing quite a bit. I still have a demo tape we made in a studio in Poole and I’m rather proud of it.