Will Your Mystery Date Be a Dream or a Dud?
Considering that I’ve been a fan of The Band since my uncle turned me onto them when I was a little boy, I was surprised to learn during our Artists Who Have Dabbled in Production for Other Artists thread that Robbie Robertson produced the debut album by someone named Hirth Martinez. I’ve tracked down a lot of Band-related albums, including that Neil Diamond exercise in pomposity, Beautiful Noise, but I’d never heard of this Martinez cat. Thanks to Townsman BigSteve, I’m now enjoying Martinez’ first two albums, the 1975 Robertson-produced Hirth From Earth and Big Bright Street, a 1977 album produced by Band engineer/arranger John Simon.
I’m still trying to get my head around who Martinez is. What little information I find on him on the Web starts with split reports of him having been “discovered” by either Robertson or Bob Dylan. Most likely he existed before either of those well-know musicians threw their support behind him, but you know how this stuff goes. As I told BigSteve after my initial spins of these albums, I thought his music sounded like “Van Dyke Parks if he didn’t suck, or Ry Cooder if he had half a voice.” I later saw that Parks had played on at least one of his albums.
As I said in the Mystery Date piece, the song I chose, “Be Everything” was not as characteristic of most of the songs on Hirth From Earth. I simply liked it and thought it had its own ephemeral feel. However, the album does have an unusual span of influences. Producer Robertson and engineer/arranger Simon are strongly in evidence here, on “Comin’ Round the Moon.” Garth Hudson also plays on these albums along with a cast of top-flight session players.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/05_Comin_Round_the_Moon.mp3|titles=Hirth Martinez, “Comin’ Round the Moon”]Across the two albums BigSteve turned me onto, Martinez has about as many short songs as Guided By Voices. From second album, here’s one that’s caught my ear, “Cold and Silver Moment”…after the jump!
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/08_Cold_and_Silver_Moment.mp3|titles=Hirth Martinez, “Cold and Silver Moment”]Martinez still writes, records, and performs to this day. All in all he strikes me as an interesting cat—and certainly the kind of cat for whom the term “cat” would apply. Finally, here’s an audio-only video of a nice live version of a song that first appeared on his debut album.
By the way, it was Van Dyke Parks’ work on Jungle Book that got petesecrutz as close as anyone with his comparison to an animated movie of animals whose ecosystem was in danger. Parks also did that Jump! album, based around Brer Rabbit and Uncle Remus.
Have you been reading Nick Hornby’s “Juliet, Naked”? This is sounding very familiar.
By the way, Mr. Martinez does have a vocal doppelganger in Michael Quercio. Really.
He also sounds a bit like you.
I had to stay out of the thread for fear that I might give it away if I said anything. Certainly the track Mr Mod picked didn’t give many clues. Surely if he’d posted Comin’ Round the moon someone would have recognized Robbie Robertson’s guitar sound.
That’s funny. I just read that book a couple of months ago. It was very good and applicable to our lot.
I would hope they would have! I’m glad to so many people were…moved by the track I picked for the date. Thanks again for turning me onto this guy.
I am now motivated to script an animated feature about Vegetarian crocodiles angry that they can’t eat children and hopefully get that tune on the stellar soundtrack I have for the flick.
Martinez alternates between the dreamy voice he uses on Be Everything and the more gruff sound he uses on Comin’ Round the Moon. And the baroque pop of Be Everything is unusual. The funky Latin rhythms of Altogether Alone are probably more common across the two albums. Also Garth Hudson fans would be very happy with the first album. None of the tracks sampled here show his prominent synth work, which gives Hirth’s UFO fascination a spacey setting.
Since these two albums have been out of print forever and were only ever issued on CD in Japan, anybody’s who is interested should let me know and I’ll hook you up.
I like the horn arrangements on these albums, which sound very much like the work of John Simon and his Band collaborators. I guess people who know the “source material” for Simon’s horn arrangements are never surprised by the “Dixieland” (???) style that’s in some of these songs and Band songs like “Across the Great Divide,” but as a rock-based music fan I dig hearing this style in the context of the music I know and love best. I don’t know that anyone else in rock uses that style of horn arrangements.
When the Kinks had a horn section, like around Muswell Hillbillies, they used that sound.
Yes, and that’s another example of that style that I like in rock music. Good call.
Of course they were heavily influenced by the Band during that period too.
They were? I never heard that before. I thought the horns came from the sort of trad jazz the Davies’ parents would play in the house when they were growing up.
I think that’s true, but in interviews John Gosling and Dave Davies have said that they were obsessed by the Band at that time — weren’t all British rockers? — and that led to the Americana sound on Muswell Hillbillies.
BTW, I just played “Tucker Crowe” on this “guess the character” site, and I stumped the computer. It did, however, quickly guess my Barry from High Fidelity.
The first album was reissued last year by, I think, Collector’s Choice; at least that’s where I bought it but I think it’s also on their label so it’s readily available at regular prices.
Townsman Geo turned me on to this album back when it was released; I had assumed that it was Geo who provided it to Mr. Mod.
BigSteve, I’ll take you up on the offer of album #2.
Couldn’t find the disc but now have. It’s on the Tartare label which is a joint venture of Warner Brothers and Collector’s Choice.
Does the Tartare label release only raw music?
I guess I didn’t look hard enough. Hirth from Earth is even available as an Amazon download, and both albums are on emusic.
The new version of this blog doesn’t have the feature where Townspersons can contact each other directly anymore? Weird. In any case I can be reached at bigsteveno2 at the yahoo thingy.
I never realized the person-to-person links were no longer in service. There may be a way to set up your profile to allow a link to a personal e-mail address, but it doesn’t default to that. I’ll try to look into that.
oKay — So this isn’t the first time this guy has been mentioned on the Hall, right???? I have been listening to him for a while now & I swear his albums were recommended by someone on here, correct??????? I’m going slightly mad…
I remember him being mentioned a couple of weeks earlier, but perhaps he was mentioned prior to that and I didn’t take note of the recommendation at the time.