It’s been less than a year since Jeffrey Martin played at Whelan’s and he makes a welcome return tonight. He is on a short European tour in support of a live album that is due for release next month on Loose Records. A regular visitor to these shores, Jeffrey has created a dedicated support base over recent years of playing here and his impressive songcraft is what endears him to our nation of saints and scholars.
Playing to a main room that soaks up all the emotion in his live performance, Jeffrey is authentic and engaging in a song set that generates an intimacy and a quiet sense of reverence for all who treasure his deeply poignant music. He displays a humility and wisdom in speaking of his inner reflections, and there is a real humanity at the core of Jeffrey Martin, that is highlighted in his songs. They speak to the essence of our human condition in all its fractured complexity and he asks the big questions, such as "Why are we here?" and "What's our purpose?"
Jeffrey delivers a solo performance and it’s a compelling experience, as he spins his songs of deep contemplation and insightful perspective. The songs tonight include seven that are taken from the most recent studio album THANK GOD WE LEFT THE GARDEN and Jeffrey speaks between the numbers of his belief in the human spirit and the hidden depths that we all possess. He likens the media news that we receive daily as akin to an aperture that is very narrow. The lens closing doesn’t allow for the way that we all relate to the world and to each other. Jeffrey assures us that there are many good people out there, doing positive things and making change, especially in America in the toxic atmosphere that pervades at present.
Renditions of Garden, Paper Crown and Quiet Man are powerful, and his song that looks at intolerance and ignorance, Red Station Wagon, is a really intense moment that brings a lengthy applause from the audience. Jeffrey performs a few songs from earlier albums also and the joy of going to see him in a live setting is that you never quite know what he will choose from his impressive repertoire. Tonight we are treated to the very personal Coal Fire, a love song of sorts in Thrift Store Dress and the superbly structured Draw the Line.
Jeffrey has a great sense of humour and his wry observations are often hilarious. The tells of the frustrations that Covid brought and how he channelled much of his creativity into odd experimentation, like buying a cheap Casio keyboard and trying to create an instrumental electronic album. The random purchase of roller blades had him skating around his neighbourhood in the depth of the night, complete with headphones, while he listened to his compositions, sometimes with the aid of some magic mushrooms. When the experiment didn’t work out to any great degree of satisfaction, Jeffrey wrote a song titled Walking instead. He includes this in the set and it has a poetic take of life ‘The violent sounds of busy streets, People living at all cost, Die away eventually, If you stay up late enough, Stoplights play for no one, The dogs are gone to dream, When I go out walking.’
Mick Flannery is a friend, and Jeffrey recalls how he was so impressed by the album A Night At the Opera that centres around the theme of famous chess games and their players. Suitably moved to respond to the challenge, Jeffrey sent Mick a song titled Checkers that is very funny and proves to be a firm favourite for audience participation on the chorus. In speaking about wanting to follow your heroes, Jeffrey chats about the beat poets and mentions William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He notes that on examination they turned out to be less than attractive in their own lives and he performs the song Billy Burroughs, a tale about an incident in Mexico when he shot his wife dead in a trick that went wrong when she placed a highball glass on her head. Life can be seen as a game of chance and this incident shows just how fragile our existence can prove to be.
As the show concludes Jeffrey plays a cover of the Neil Young song One Of These Days and he invites the support act duo Mark Erelli and Dinty Child to join him on guitars and vocals. The standout song was There Is A Treasure and it has all the elements that make a Jeffrey Martin song into something to cherish ‘The city will still be moving in the morning, A million lives all breathing like a tide, Each one a story beyond our comprehending, Each trying to make a life and feel alive.’ There is the soul of a poet in Jeffrey Martin and with his songs tonight he made us all feel a little bit more connected and a great deal more alive. A superb evening.
We had a very special opening act to add even more quality to the show, and the appearance of both Mark Erelli (Lori McKenna, Josh Ritter, Jeffrey Foucault) and Dinty Child (Session Americana, Kris Delmhorst, Catbirds) onstage, brought great rewards to the audience who responded with a very warm welcome. The duo are lifelong friends and an intrinsic part of the Boston Folk/Roots scene as both singer-songwriters and multi-instrumentalists. Their performance tonight across a short set was inspiring in the interplay between the two guitars and the vocal harmonies. Songs they have written together such as Look Up and History Of the Future are performed with great skill and Feels Like the First Time, The Morning and Solitaire are also included, plus a new song, written with Peter Mulvey recently, gets a first time performance, and When I Get To Where I’m Going has the crowd singing along on the chorus with great enthusiasm. The duo are currently finishing off a short tour of Ireland where they played shows in Dublin, Galway, Cork, Donegal, Wexford and Tyrone. It was great to see them support Jeffrey Martin and hopefully they will return again in the not too distant future.
Review and photos by Paul McGee