Johnny Martyn June 8, 2007

John Martyn Booker
(Johnny Martyn, sometimes Johnny Guitar)
Born July 16 1934; died March 19 2007

Founder member of the Vipers Skiffle Group

Johnny Martyn, who died at age 72, was a founder member of
the Vipers Skiffle Group, which became a vital stepping-stone in the creation of Britain's rock'n'roll music when later band members, Jet Harris and Hank Marvin, went on to form the Shadows. At one point, the group was the only real competition for Lonnie Donegan (obituary, November 5 2002). In early 1956, Martyn was managing the Gyre and Gimble coffee bar in London's John Adam Street. He began playing with the guitarist and vocalist Jean van den Bosch and washboard player John Pilgrim. On occasions, Diz Disley played third guitar. Sometimes Martyn took his guitar to the Breadbasket coffee bar in Cleveland Street, where he met up with a fellow busker Wally Whyton. The proto-Vipers Skiffle Group - they named themselves after If You're a Viper, a communication in code to hep weed smokers -consisting of Martyn, van den Bosch, Pilgrim, Whyton and bassist Tony Tolhurst, formed at this point and snaffled a residency in the basement of what became Soho's famed 2 I's. There, Parlophone's George Martin saw them and liked what he saw enough to audition them at EMI's Abbey Road Studio that September. The next month, their debut 78, Ain't You Glad/Pick a Bale of Cotton appeared, although the follow-up Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O/10000 Years Ago (the latter track lent its name to the Vipers' boxed set 10000 Years Ago of 1996) eclipsed it, reaching the Top 10. The Cumberland Gap/Maggie May, their fourth single, was another hit in 1957. Donegan had checked out the Vipers early on at the Breadbasket and heard them play Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O. When the Vipers got wind of his intention to tweak, then copyright and record the song, Whyton pre-empted him, so, although Donegan's version got the higher chart placing, Whyton and FW Varley got the publishing on both versions. Another Donegan incident entered Vipers folklore. The Vipers often toured with a small zoo, monkeys with names like Elvis and 'Iggins included. At one party, Pilgrim's pet monkey perched on Donegan's shoulder and began defecating. Donegan kept talking, basking as the centre of rapt attention. A roomful of people said nothing. Martyn was born Johnny Booker (Martyn was his middle name) in London. When his father left and joined the Royal Navy, and his mother married again, they moved to East Wittering, West Sussex. None too popular with his stepfather, at 16, he was, according to his sister Jackie, shipped off to Canada to be with his father. There, he took up guitar and eventually "pretty much hitchhiked back to England". Martyn had been born with club feet and had many operations for the condition, and in later life he performed in a wheelchair. But his condition did not inhibit him whether as the boy soprano singing Oh, for the Wings of a Dove in Westminster Abbey, or during his skiffle days or accompanying his mother's contralto voice. Nor did it cramp his style. In Pay Me My Money Down (1957), Whyton extemporised, "I thought I heard John Booker whine/Pay me my money down/Too much women all the time." The Vipers were trendsetters. They created one of the great song repertoires of the day. Chas McDevitt hails their achievement in Skiffle (1997): "They left a legacy of party music, played with excitement and verve, which was the hallmark of the British skiffle craze." They adeptly interpreted material like The Derby Ram, Burns' Charlie is My Darling, the Fenian song Kevin Barry and Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land. Nor did they shy from singing then taboo words such as "bastard" and "Goddamn" in Sam Hall (an updated She Was Poor But She Was Honest), while contextualising the era's political corruption. Booker returned to Canada (Victoria) where he married his wife Joan, and worked as a social worker. His health declined but he died a fighter, still challenging unpaid publishing royalties from a supposedly more innocent age of popular music.

Our thanks to Ed Simpson-Baikie for bringing Johnny to our attention.