Martyn Joseph

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Martyn Joseph (born 1960 in Penarth, Wales) is a Welsh singer-songwriter. In 2004, he won the Best Male Artist Category in the BBC Welsh Music Awards.

Joseph began recording in 1983, but he has since described his first five albums as "crap"^[1], and his own website contains no mention of them. The recording career which he still acknowledges therefore began with 1989's self-released An Aching And A Longing, which sold 30,000 copies and gained him a large enough following that he was subsequently signed to Sony Records. His two albums for Sony, Being There and Martyn Joseph, produced five Top 50 singles in the U.K., including "Dolphins Make Me Cry", "Working Mother", and "Let's Talk About It In The Morning." Prior to 2003's Whoever It Was That Brought Me Here Will Have To Take Me Home, these two albums were the only albums of his to have been released in the United States.

After being dropped by Sony, he recorded two albums for the U.K. independent label Grapevine: Full Colour Black and White and Tangled Souls. In 1999 he established his own label, Pipe Records, and since then has released four studio albums (Far From Silent, Whoever It Was That Brought Me Here Will Have To Take Me Home, Deep Blue & Vegas), an album of his covers of other performers' songs (Run To Cover), an 8-song EP (The Shirley Sessions), a 2-CD retrospective (Thunder And Rainbows), three live albums (Don't Talk About Love Volumes 1 and 2 & MJGB06), and a live DVD. He has also recorded four albums of collaborations with other artists: Faith, Folk, And Anarchy and Faith, Folk, And Anarchy Live (both with Tom Robinson and Steve Knightley), The Bridgerow Sessions (with Steve Knightley), and Because We Can (with poet Stewart Henderson).

He releases a regular news magazine, The Passport Queue, the name of which is taken from a line in his song "Everything In Heaven Comes Apart". Subscribers receive free annual CDs of rare recordings.

He tours extensively as a solo artist in the U.K., and in the early 2000s he began touring regularly in Canada and the U.S. He is also a regular performer at major Canadian folk festivals and at the annual Greenbelt festival in the U.K.. He has performed as a support act for a wide variety of artists, such as Marc Cohn, Joan Armatrading, Art Garfunkel, and Suzanne Vega. In June 2000 he left a tour with Shirley Bassey after only eight shows because of what he described as "rather obvious artistic differences"^[2]. Having unexpected time on his hands, he recorded an EP entitled The Shirley Sessions, which consisted of several songs written during the tour.

He writes extensively with poet Stewart Henderson and co-wrote the songs "He Never Said" and "Let's Talk About It In The Morning" with singer-songwriter Tom Robinson.

He is also a keen amateur golfer, having played off a handicap of one at the age of fourteen. He remains the youngest ever winner of the Glamorganshire Golf Club Championship which he won at the age of 17. He has won that title 4 times and also played for the County of Glamorgan and in the British Youths and Amateur Championships in the eighties.

[edit] Discography

I'm Only Beginning (1983)
Nobody's Fool (1984)
Sold Out (1985)
Ballads...In Quieter Moments (1986)
Treasure the Questions (1987)
An Aching And A Longing (1989)
Being There (1992)
Martyn Joseph (1995)
Full Colour Black And White (1996)
Tangled Souls (1998)
Far From Silent (1999)
The Shirley Sessions (2000)
Thunder and Rainbows - The Best We Could Find (2001, best-of compilation featuring two new songs)
Don't Talk About Love 1992 - 2002 (2001-2002, two volumes of live recordings)
Whoever It Was That Brought Me Here Will Have To Take Me Home (2003)
Run to Cover (2004)
Faith, Folk, And Anarchy (2004, with Tom Robinson & Steve Knightley)
Faith, Folk & Anarchy Live (2004)
Deep Blue (2005)
The Bridgerow Sessions (2005, with Steve Knightley)
Because We Can... (2005, music and poetry recorded with Stewart Henderson)
Martyn Joseph Live (Live concert double DVD) (2006)
MJGB06 - Live Greenbelt 2006 (2007)
Vegas (September 2007)