Beverley Martyn, the British folk singer-songwriter, has died. The news broke via a statement from the family of the late John Martyn, saying she passed "peacefully at home" on Monday (April 27). She was 79.
"Beverley was a remarkable woman of great inner strength. She was beautiful, intelligent, warm and kind," the statement added.
Beverley Martyn was born Beverley Kutner near Coventry, England, on March 24, 1947. She was chosen to lead a jug band called the Levee Breakers as a student and recorded her first single with them, "Babe I'm Leaving You," when she was 16. She was then signed to the Deram Records label and released singles under her first name. Her first single for the label was "Happy New Year" written by Randy Newman, and she performed it with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Nicky Hopkins, and Andy White.
After meeting John Martyn in 1969, the pair married and collaborated for the 1970 albums Stormbringer! and The Road To Ruin, which came out on Island Records. She contributed to her husband's solo records until their divorce. She returned to solo music in 1998 with No Frills and again in 2014 with The Phoenix And The Turtle.
