Music
Press
Bob played live and talked about the reissue of Midwest Farm Disaster on WUML's Sunrise Radio ~ 01/15/08
Click here to listen or paste into your brower:
http://communications.uml.edu/sunrise/?p=1095
- Live on WUML
Bob played live and talked about the reissue of Midwest Farm Disaster on WUML's Sunrise Radio ~ 01/15/08
Click here to listen or paste into your brower:
http://communications.uml.edu/sunrise/?p=1095
- Live on WUML
"Martin's voice at times echoes John Prine and Bob Dylan. It is Martin's rich appreciation of tradition though that makes River Turns The Wheel come alive with a lyrical landscape of stories..." "During a rare performance at (SF) Paradise's upstairs speakeasy, the legions of folk music fans that packed the tiny room were privy to one of the finest practitioners in the fine art of traditional folk music." - JC Juanis
"Martin's voice at times echoes John Prine and Bob Dylan. It is Martin's rich appreciation of tradition though that makes River Turns The Wheel come alive with a lyrical landscape of stories..." "During a rare performance at (SF) Paradise's upstairs speakeasy, the legions of folk music fans that packed the tiny room were privy to one of the finest practitioners in the fine art of traditional folk music." - JC Juanis
"Bob Martin is rock's answer to Emily Dickinson. This album (River Turns The Wheel) mixes the authenticity of Woody Guthrie with the intensity of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes." - Brad Kava
"Bob Martin is rock's answer to Emily Dickinson. This album (River Turns The Wheel) mixes the authenticity of Woody Guthrie with the intensity of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes." - Brad Kava
“Martin's lyrics have a very American style to them, simple and understated yet concise and often powerful. This is not the poetry of metaphor and myth but the straightforward art of the folk storyteller.” - Bob MacKenzie
“Martin's lyrics have a very American style to them, simple and understated yet concise and often powerful. This is not the poetry of metaphor and myth but the straightforward art of the folk storyteller.” - Bob MacKenzie
"Where did this guy come from?
Martin has turned in one of the strongest sets I've heard in a long time. There is nothing derivative about Martin's music. The people and places in these songs ring true and strike at the gut. There is no dead wood, either every song demands to be heard." - John Caulkins
"Where did this guy come from?
Martin has turned in one of the strongest sets I've heard in a long time. There is nothing derivative about Martin's music. The people and places in these songs ring true and strike at the gut. There is no dead wood, either every song demands to be heard." - John Caulkins
"Possessed of a slightly raspy delivery, Martin's solidly structured words create images of late night subway trains and post midnight mean streets, hobos jumpin trains, fishin' from an abandoned train trestle, long abandoned textile mills and so much more.
One of the most honest and truthful records it has been my pleasure to listen to. Forget the imitators this guy is undoutedly The Bob." - Arthur Wood
"Possessed of a slightly raspy delivery, Martin's solidly structured words create images of late night subway trains and post midnight mean streets, hobos jumpin trains, fishin' from an abandoned train trestle, long abandoned textile mills and so much more.
One of the most honest and truthful records it has been my pleasure to listen to. Forget the imitators this guy is undoutedly The Bob." - Arthur Wood
"With Martin's music it is the sheer excellence of the songs themselves and of the lyrics within...One of the best narrative songwriters in America." - Charlie Hunter
"With Martin's music it is the sheer excellence of the songs themselves and of the lyrics within...One of the best narrative songwriters in America." - Charlie Hunter
"If he had been given the right opportunities, and received the right breaks, he could have been bigger than Dylan". - Radio DJ
"If he had been given the right opportunities, and received the right breaks, he could have been bigger than Dylan". - Radio DJ
"I was first struck by the power of Bob Martin’s songwriting on Midwest Farm Disaster in the 1970s. His lyrics are powerful, direct and moving. This is a writer that has style, economy of lyric and the ability to tell a good story.
Listen to the story in “My Father Painted Houses” from the CD Next To Nothin '. SI Kahn singled him out as one of the best songwriters in the country." - Dick Pleasants
"I was first struck by the power of Bob Martin’s songwriting on Midwest Farm Disaster in the 1970s. His lyrics are powerful, direct and moving. This is a writer that has style, economy of lyric and the ability to tell a good story.
Listen to the story in “My Father Painted Houses” from the CD Next To Nothin '. SI Kahn singled him out as one of the best songwriters in the country." - Dick Pleasants
Every now and then I come across a masterpiece album that somehow flew underneath my musical radar or because of my age and the tender innocence of my ear, I just hadn’t arrived at the place in time to fully understand or appreciate its magic. Once found though, these albums more often than not become a touchstone, a fork in the journey where the well-worn road is left behind in favor of the rarely trodden path. Many times these albums remind me of an old, long-abandoned farmhouse seen for the first time in many years with all of its ancient stories and mysteries blowing in and out of glassless windows. I’ve collected quite a list of such albums: Townes Van Zandt’s For the Sake of the Song, Guy Clark’s Old No. 1, Tom Russell’s Box of Visions, Willis Alan Ramsey’s one and only classic offering, and more recently, David Rodriguez’s Proud Heart, just to name a few. I can now add Bob Martin’s Midwest Farm Disaster to that list. FOR FULL STORY GO TO WWW.AMERICANAROOTS.COM - Americana Roots
Every now and then I come across a masterpiece album that somehow flew underneath my musical radar or because of my age and the tender innocence of my ear, I just hadn’t arrived at the place in time to fully understand or appreciate its magic. Once found though, these albums more often than not become a touchstone, a fork in the journey where the well-worn road is left behind in favor of the rarely trodden path. Many times these albums remind me of an old, long-abandoned farmhouse seen for the first time in many years with all of its ancient stories and mysteries blowing in and out of glassless windows. I’ve collected quite a list of such albums: Townes Van Zandt’s For the Sake of the Song, Guy Clark’s Old No. 1, Tom Russell’s Box of Visions, Willis Alan Ramsey’s one and only classic offering, and more recently, David Rodriguez’s Proud Heart, just to name a few. I can now add Bob Martin’s Midwest Farm Disaster to that list. FOR FULL STORY GO TO WWW.AMERICANAROOTS.COM - Americana Roots
Discography
DISCOGRAPHY
Midwest Farm Disaster, RCA Victor 1972
Last Chance Rider, June Appal Records 1982
The River Turns the Wheel, Riversong Records 1992
Next to Nothin’, Riversong Records 1999
Midwest Farm Disaster - reissued on Riversong Records 2007
Photos
Bio
With a music career spanning forty years, Bob Martin is an acclaimed songwriter and captivating live performer. Born in Lowell, MA, he drew inspiration from hometown idol Jack Kerouac at an early age. Writing poetry that eventually turned to song, Martin became a regular on the east coast folk circuit in 1969. He was “discovered” at Gerde’s Folk City in NYC - a club made famous by Bob Dylan’s early gigs. In 1972 Bob Martin worked closely with Chet Atkins to record his first album Midwest Farm Disaster for RCA in Nashville. A newly mastered cd reissue of Midwest Farm Disaster was released on Riversong Records in fall 2007.
In 1974, he dropped out of the mainstream and moved to a mountain home in WV. He continued to write music and pursued his muse through various artistic endeavors. In 1982, he recorded his second album, Last Chance Rider for June Appal Records. The record was recognized as one of the top three folk albums in the country by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors.
He released his third album in 1997, The River Turns the Wheel on his own label Riversong Records. This is Bob Martin's most commercially successful album to date; and music critics around the country took notice. The album reached number sixteen on the Gavin Americana chart and was chosen one of the top ten albums in 1997 by Brad Kava of The San Jose Mercury News. Dave Perry of The Lowell Sun chose it as the best folk album of 1997 and Tom Flannery of The Electric City News also picked it as the best release of that year. He toured nationally and opened for Merle Haggard in 1999. Next To Nothin’ was released in 2000 to more rave critical reviews and extensive airplay on folk, country and Americana radio programs around the country.
Bob Martin is scheduled to release a new album of original material in 2008.
PRESS
“I was first struck by the power of Bob Martin’s songwriting on Midwest Farm Disaster in the 1970s. His lyrics are powerful, direct and moving. This is a writer that has style, economy of lyric and the ability to tell a good story. Si Kahn singled him out as one of the best songwriters in the country.” Dick Pleasants – WUMB-FM Boston (November 2007)
"Martin's voice at times echoes John Prine and Bob Dylan. It is Martin's rich appreciation of tradition though that makes River Turns The Wheel come alive with a lyrical landscape of stories... one of the finest practitioners in the fine art of traditional folk music." J.C Juanis – RELIX Magazine (Sep 1, 1998)
"Bob Martin is rock's answer to Emily Dickinson. This album (River Turns The Wheel) mixes the authenticity of Woody Guthrie with the intensity of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes."
Brad Kava - San Jose Mercury News (Nov 30, 1997)
“Martin's lyrics have a very American style to them, simple and understated yet concise and often powerful. This is not the poetry of metaphor and myth but the straightforward art of the folk storyteller.” Bob MacKenzie –Sound Bytes (2001)
"If he had been given the right opportunities, and received the right breaks, he could have been bigger than Dylan". Charles Laquidara - Legendary Boston DJ (Sep 1, 2006)
CONTACT
Riversong Records
info@riversong.com
www.riversong.com
www.myspace.com/bobmartinriversong
Links
