1. Martyn Joseph has won that title four times and played for the County of Glamorgan and in the British Youths and Amateur Championships in the 1980s.
18 Facts About Martyn Joseph
1. 2.
Martyn Joseph remains a keen amateur golfer and plays with a handicap of four.
3.
Martyn Joseph began recording in 1983, releasing five albums in the 1980s, culminating in his 1989 self-financed An Aching and a Longing, which sold 30,000 copies and gained him a large enough following that he was signed to Sony Records.
4.
Martyn Joseph made his major label debut with Being There in 1992.
5.
Martyn Joseph worked musically with Pete Brookes, while collaborating with lyricist Stewart Henderson on many of the tracks.
6.
The first single from Martyn Joseph, "Talk About It in the Morning" co-written with Tom Robinson, was released in 1995 and reached the Top 50 in the UK Singles Chart.
7.
In 1999, Martyn Joseph established his own label, Pipe Records, citing "creative freedom" and "complete control" as the main advantages granted him that were not possible working under other labels.
8.
Between Far From Silent and his next LP, Martyn Joseph came out with several works, the first of which was a 2000 limited edition EP, The Shirley Sessions, which he worked on primarily during a tour with Shirley Bassey gone awry.
9.
In November 2003, Martyn Joseph released his second LP under Pipe Records, Whoever It Was That Brought Me Here Will Have To Take Me Home.
10.
Soon thereafter, Martyn Joseph began a serious collaboration with Tom Robinson and Steve Knightley, whom he worked with extensively early in his career.
11.
Martyn Joseph mused in an interview with a folk music website, "I bet, in his private moments alone, deep down, Tony Blair the person regrets what he did in Iraq".
12.
In October 2008, Martyn Joseph released Evolved, a new full-length album featuring 14 newly recorded tracks of songs in Martyn Joseph's previous catalogue, but played in a different style to their original recordings.
13.
Martyn Joseph felt that the songs found in his albums no longer reflected the manner in which he played them live.
14.
The songs were uniquely presented exactly as Martyn Joseph played them in studio without any overdubbing or additional instrumentation.
15.
In January 2009, at the height of the Israeli attack on Gaza, Martyn Joseph released "Five Sisters", a track paying homage to the five sisters who were killed by an Israeli shell supposedly meant to hit a mosque.
16.
Martyn Joseph has performed as a support act for a variety of artists, such as Chris de Burgh, Marc Cohn, Joan Armatrading, Art Garfunkel, Janis Ian, and Suzanne Vega.
17.
In May 2004, in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Martyn Joseph released a five-track EP, The Great American Novel, with all proceeds designated to War Child.
18.
Martyn Joseph worked on the recording with regular collaborators Tom Robinson and Steve Knightley.