About.
I am a self-taught musician and life-taught writer living in Sheffield.
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I've recorded 4 albums, got 5 novels in the bag and written several plays.
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The guitar came first and the playing developed into a sort of John Renbourn/Martin Carthy hybrid, which essentially it still is.
I spent my twenties singing in clubs and pubs, doing recording sessions and hooking up with local bands and musicians.
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At the tail end of the eighties, I stood in for the guitar player with cult band Don Valley and the Rotherhides. When he came back, I stayed on as a banjo player and extra van driver (a much more important role). Many joyful times up and down the country followed.
While still playing solo and in bands, I took on an array of jobs, usually ones no one else fancied, jobs most people would run a mile from. Like trying to keep public libraries from falling to bits, shunting exhibitions out of pokey artists’ studios and into inaccessible galleries, and looking after tottering cemeteries and crematoria.
For many years I fooled everyone into thinking I was a solid council employee, while secretly nurturing a king-sized impostor syndrome!
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The full-time work came to an end a few years back when I decided to focus on writing - stories and plays - along with recording a back catalogue of the more memorable songs and tunes I’d composed.
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I do still work part time for a small, mildly eccentric charity called The Guild of St George, which works to sustain the legacy of John Ruskin (its founder) and persuade people that...
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“THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE”
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...which might just be be the greatest motto ever.
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Martin
Don Valley & The Rotherhides
(Martin - front right)