Martyn Joseph

Martyn Joseph is a performer like no other.  Shades of Springsteen, Knopfler and Dave Matthews there may be - but he stands in his own right, built on a reputation for giving what thousands have described as the best live music experience of their lives.

One of acoustic music's most arresting artists, the Welsh singer songwriter has been in demand on both sides of the Atlantic for over two decades. Martyn`s 25 year career has embraced some notable achievements including 5 Top 50 UK chart positions, with such songs as Dolphins Make Me Cry, Working Mother and Let`s Talk About it in the Morning, and appearances and tours with, amongst others, Suzanne Vega, Marc Cohn, Joan Armatrading, Runrig, Clannad, Chris de Burgh, Art Garfunkel, Jools Holland and even Celine Dion and Shirley Bassey. He has won fans everywhere with his uncanny fusion of material -feisty, pull no punches big issue numbers alongside stripped bare love songs.

Martyn`s particular strength is in the lyrical narrative of his songs, be they contemporary protests against injustice and inhumanity, a musical psalm to the fulfilment and fragilities of love, or a piercing précis of social history, "It`s the song that can soothe, explain or even in a small way save us". In this manner he carries on in the tradition of the six string balladeer as both catalyst and interpreter of our raddled and rewarding times, our personal and communal stories sung out loud in the spirit of Woody Guthrie, Ewan MacColl, Hank Williams and Bruce Springsteen.

Voted Best Male Artist at the 2004 BBC Welsh Music Awards and with a string of humanitarian plaudits and awards, he's a mean guitar player with one of the most powerful voices on the circuit crafting songs with, as the BBC`s Bob Harris put it, "outstanding lyrical intelligence.

Across a 25-year career, and having released his 30th album Evolved in October 2008, which traces the organic morphing of some of his best loved songs, Martyn`s song catalogue is an awesomely impressive archive of our times, our tribulations, our wonder and our wounds. One reviewer after seeing Martyn in concert likened the experience and content to "the beautiful business of being alive with all it`s jokes, absurdity and sadness, seared by music for the heart and head".