Beverley Martyn obituary

"Having arrived in London at the age of 15 from Broad Heath school in Coventry to study drama at the Corona theatre school, Beverley Kutner, as she was then known, had found herself more attracted to singing in Soho folk clubs than to acting, and had turned down an offer from the Royal Shakespeare Company so that she could be a singer."

"She also began writing songs, singing at the Les Cousins, an all-night basement club in Greek Street, where other regulars included the guitarist Bert Jansch. She and Jansch became a couple for a time, and he taught her to play the guitar, while she appeared on the cover of his 1965 album It Don't Bother Me."

"Around that time she was signed to Decca's new Deram label as a soloist, and now called simply Beverley released her second single, Happy New Year, in 1966, with backing from the ace session men Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. The song, a Randy Newman composition, was, she complained, chosen for me, and was too dark for the time and didn't catch on."

"She was best known for two albums, Stormbringer! and The Road to Ruin, recorded in 1970 with her then husband, the guitarist John Martyn after which she had a long absence from the studio while raising a family and trying to deal with the fallout from their troubled marriage."

Beverley Martyn, a singer-songwriter with a bluesy, versatile voice, was a prominent figure in London’s late-1960s folk scene. She studied drama in London but chose singing, turning down an offer from the Royal Shakespeare Company. Known earlier as Beverley Kutner, she released a single with the jug band Levee Breakers in 1965 and began writing songs while performing in Soho clubs. She worked with guitarist Bert Jansch, appeared on his album cover, and later signed to Deram, releasing singles backed by Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. She supported Nick Drake with home cooking and laundry, performed at Monterey Pop in 1967, and contributed spoken vocals to Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends. She recorded two key albums with John Martyn in 1970 and later stepped away from studio work while raising a family and dealing with marriage fallout.

Read at www.theguardian.com