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Elly Roberts reviews
Pipe Records
- Released: October 2008
- Rating: 10/10
- Vote and comment on this album:View Comments
Proud valley boy shines with Dragon tales aplenty, and more.
Hands up! Im a proud Welshman, so its tough being objective on this one. Ill try.
A few years ago, Martyn Joseph was dropped by Sony it beggars belief. Must be regretting it, though they did benefit from five Top 50 UK singles .
Now Joseph gets his chance to prove them outrageously wrong.
Evolved, released on his own label, is littered with dazzling acoustic based songs, though tagged as the Welsh Bruce Springsteen, is slightly off the- mark. Billy Bragg more like.
Josephs passion (hes Welsh you know, living in Cardiff) is only matched by Rhyls very own Mike Peters, of The Alarm. Not many singer – songwriters (without a band) can create what Martyn has delivered here. In fact, a band would diminish and spoil the whole thing.
Martyn has one magic touch passion and as you go through the songs, it just intensifies, peaking on the tragic events of Dic Penderyn, the Welsh working class hero Richard Lewis (1808 1831), associated with the Merthyr Rising. This wordy Taff has plenty of gushing lyrics to please all-comers as well, because he can spread his observations, biographical and autobiographical templates world-wide, with Arizona Dreams a prime example, using some deft harmonica-play giving it a genuine Americana rootsy feel.
Its his home-grown interests which bring the best results, and the fact this wonderful tunesmith reveals his soul, not as per usual, through his eyes, but his lyrics, found in particular on poignant Sing To My Soul, about the tragic Aberfan disaster, in which 114 people were killed, including 116 children.
Its a melodic beauty that opens the CD though- Kiss The World Beautiful, while jewel in the crown is the stunning Cant Breathe. This most filigree of ballads is enough draw tears, with Have An Angel , coming a close second best. If Turn Me Tender doesnt turn you into jelly, well, nothing will. Closing a great album, he drools about his love affair with Cardiff Bay, hoping the great city will love him too, which Im sure it does.
Okay, so the songs have been released before across various albums, but not in this format, hence, Evolved, and how.
Martyn tours extensively, in the USA and Canada, and you can catch him at Caernarfons Galeri this Sunday 16 November and Chesters Telfords Warehouse on 25 November. (See website for details)
File under: Its a winner.
Weblinks:martynjoseph.com /myspace.com/martynjoseph
The full list of tracks included are :
1. Kiss The World Beautiful
2. Sing To My Soul
3. Proud Valley Boy
4. Arizona Dreams
5. Dic Penderyn
6. Strange Way
7. Cant Breathe
8. Weight Of The World
9. Working Mother
10. Have An Angel Walk With Her
11. Please Sir
12. The Good In Me Is Dead
13. This Being Woman
14. Turn Me Tender
15. Cardiff BayView the discussion thread.blog comments powered by Disqus= 0) {query += ‘url’ + i + ‘=’ + encodeURIComponent(links[i].href) + ‘&’;}}document.write(”);})();//]]]]>]]>
Elly Roberts passed away in 2011, but he was a man who was so passionate about all types of music and loved meeting his musical heroes, such as Mick Hucknall at a book signing at the Trafford Centre, Manchester in 2007.
A former teacher and also a music journalist, DJ and radio presenter on local community station Calon FM, plus appearances on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 2, Elly started doing reviews for DVDfever.co.uk in 2004 and he did the majority of the CD and concerts reviews on the website.
I know also that he loved getting away for the summer to Spain and I hope that wherever he is now he is enjoying the hot sunshine and, as one of his friends has said on his Facebook page, that he is interviewing his musical heroes.