Waterproof
Terence Martin
Good Dog Records
2000
11 tracks
The voice is old and a bit raw, a sound reminiscent of Pete Seeger or Oscar Brand and, in later years, Stan Rogers and his imitators. The guitar as often as not has that lilting quality Gordon Lightfoot brought to the music. The songs lean more toward what today is termed "singer-songwriter" music, but with a difference. Many in this genre write and record songs because they can and not because they are particularly able. Few so-called singer songwriters are equally good at writing lyrics, composing and arranging music, and performing. The bright spots must shine through the flaws. Not so Terence Martin, whose flaws, if any, are well disguised indeed by the quality of his writing and perfomance.
While this music has a certain folkish resonance to it and Martin's publicist refers to him as a singer-songwriter, it is both and it is neither. In performance, Martin fits most into a genre of pop music that picks up on elements of folk-rock, jazz, and blues, drawing this ingenuous mix into something whole and new. If pressed, one might place Martin's work [incorrectly, in my opinion] into some subset of folk-rock or even roots-rock.
That the work of Terence Martin differs from that of many other singer-songwriters may have to do with the direction from which he comes to the music. In my experience, most of those who choose to call themselves singer-songwriters are instrumentalists, usually piano or guitar, who decide to try their hand first at singing and then at writing lyrics. Terence Martin started from the words, becoming a poet [yes, a published poet] who performed his poetry live at readings and an English teacher before he became a songwriter and performer of his own songs.
The poetry in Martin's work shines through. More than does the classic American storyteller, Martin brings to his words the lyrical feel of Canadian artists like Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot, or Joni Mitchell. I think of Cohen especially in the way Martin juxtposes the real and unreal in lines like:
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they took london bridge & put it in the desert with old ladies selling flowers when you cross & you can stare at the sun & get your bearings but never admit that you are lost | |
With some exceptions, the performances here remind me of two different bands situated in time two decades apart but similar in many respects: Dire Straits and The Wallflowers. Some songs sound more like the one band and some more like the other, but mostly the sounds blend as required by the particular song. This sound sets Martin's work in what is becoming a tradition, ranging from the late Twentieth century until now, of eclectic poetry-tinged rock music. It's an ideal frame for Martin's words.
"Another Memphis Blues" especially reminds me of Dire Straits. The instrumental backing has the eerie sound of what I call swamp-music, a sort of pulled back, bluesy sound that seems mostly to come out of the American south. Just enough reverb is added to lend the music a haunting quality. Add to that Martin's dry sung-spoken vocal and "The Sultans of Swing" comes easily to mind.
Also reminiscent of Dire Straits, "Dreamland" takes surreal events that have actually happened and incorporates them into a dreamscape which is not real, leaving the listener to consider what is real and what is not. This is the lyric I had said reminds me of Cohen. The guitar line also reminds me of some Cohen songs. The vocal, however, is again very much the stuff of classic Dire Straits. Here's another example of this song's wonderful surreal lyric:
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i took a subway from new york to las vegas 'cause i left a part of me underground but nothing was there where i left it so i stole it from the lost and found & took it to a table inside i said to the dealer let it ride to dreamland | |
"Cracks in the Sidewalk" is an excellent example of Martin's songs that remind me of The Wallflowers. It may be that the effective use of harmonica and especially organ contribute to this impression, but there's more to it than that. The arrangement has the sort of fullness that The Wallflowers achieve on many of their recordings and, while it retains some of that Dire Straits feel, Martin's vocal takes on a more melodic style than in some of the other songs. In this song as in others, there is a surreal, poetic quality. It starts off sounding grounded in a too common real-world story ("he went down to the store one day...but he was never seen again"). But there's another world, perhaps as real, perhaps not, showing through. In Martin's lyric, "he went to his own funeral/when he found out that he'd died," and the chorus tells us that "...there's cracks in the sidewalk/you can fall between/there's cracks so wide in the sidewalk/you can fall between."
"Almost Anyone" is another song that reminds me of The Wallflowers. All the same elements are present: the poetic lyrics, the expressive harmonica and organ, the melodic guitar. In this song, Martin's vocal is even more melodic and his inflections often come very close to Jakob Dylan's vocal style when Dylan starts to sound a bit like his even more famous father.
The lyrics for these songs are printed in a readable size that makes the jewel-case insert a sort of mini-book of poetry interesting enough to read even without the music. The music simply underlines the fine writing of Terence Martin and perhaps makes it accessible to a larger audience.
Anyone who thinks it's all about the music and the words don't matter should check out Waterproof by Terence Martin. In this release at least, the words do very much matter. Anyone who does think the words matter should also check out this release. It's that good.
If you want to keep up to date with what Terence Martin is writing and performing, be sure to visit MartinSongs.Com. Here's an artist we hope won't fall between those cracks in the sidewalk.
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