Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There are many way to look at a cover song, the honourable mention in which the nod of a head is made at the behest of acknowledging inspiration and immortality once held, the chance for the performer to give their album a lift and to perhaps draw in a different audience in which their bank balances might take a kindly boost. What is more rare is the sense of duty, the timeless grace in which a musician who exemplifies the discerning craft and beauty to which another soul has moved along, and in which now must be reiterated because the times, the Days Of Decision, are upon us.
Nobody needs an excuse to sing the praises of another human being’s efforts, it is perhaps a sad indictment of the way we live now that means that such a motion has become mired in dark thoughts, that people wonder what someone is after, rather than seeing it for what it is, a moment of clarity that has improved humanity, significantly enriched the social aspect of the way we see ourselves in society.
If nobody needs an excuse to sing the beauty of virtue and praises, then to Martyn Joseph we surely need to make an exception for and in his magnificent readings to one of the sincerest lyric writers to take the age, Phil Ochs, Days Of Decision is one that makes you want to revisit the past, to the age in which Mr. Ochs passionately wrote, whilst all the time revelling in the desire shown by Martyn Joseph in the modern age.
The sound could be thought of as something akin to the memory of musical twins, each tapping into a thought across time, a two-way radio transmission received and glorified across the different decades, and as for the days of decision, there is only one clear choice to be made, one of rejoice, to be part of sheer enlightenment, and in songs such as I Ain’t Marching Anymore, The Ballad Of William Worthy, Flower Lady, the symbolic gesture and gravity of That Was The President, That’s What I Want To Hear and the album closer of Song Of My Returning, that rejoice is plain and simple to understand, and yet celebrated in its delivery.
A choice made in which the Days Of Decision are made, for there is no other way to live that to acknowledge with purity of heart those that made you sing in the first place.
Martyn Joseph releases Days Of Decision: A Tribute To Phil Ochs on January 17th via Pipe Records.
Ian D. Hall