Will Martin

[gra7890]

Hi Stephany,
Nice to see you posting so many again. Sorry you will miss Will's concert.
I dint think you have mentioned about your new job since you were about to attend the interviews.

CONGRATULATIONS !

Hope to cross paths again at a Hayley concert next year.

All the Best,

Graham

[drew]

First of all, Peter my apologies to you for not catching up with you after the concert. I went off in search of "Dollybird" and after a little confusion eventually found her and Dom Tighe from Blake.

Will proved to be an all round entertainer with songs from his album "A New World" and other e-mailed requests. The songs were interspersed with light hearted tales from his life.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this is what I heard:

Will:

Nature Boy (solo, piano)
So Far Away (with Pavao Quartet)
Cinema Paradiso (with Tim Evans on piano)
Every time I look at you (Il Divo, no not with Il Divo)

Pavao Quartet:
When you wish upon a star
Get up, get out

Will:
What a wonderful world (Louis Armstrong)
Don't dream it's over (Crowded House)

(Break)

Tim Evans:
West Side Story Medley flowing into
Will:
Something's Coming (Riff)
Anthem (Chess)
Into the West
Home (Fron)
Happy Birthday!!!
Going Home

There was a theme towards the end of the concert as Will is "Going Home" on Saturday for eight weeks.

[drew]

Stephany,

next time Will arranges an intimate concert at the New Players Theatre (underneath the arches) make sure that your company give you a temporary transfer as the London PriceWaterhouseCoopers building is right on top. We could hear the trains going over the top (Charing Cross) during the concert, no doubt even if you were working until 22:00 you could have heard Will singing underneath!

Sorry, in England we would say "That is rubbing salt into the wound"!

[postscript]

Hi Drew.

Incredible that we should have missed one another it is after all only a 250 seater theatre, or just under!

As for your running list, you must have been near the front. Where I was, a couple of rows behind the cross aisle it was too dark to make notes. However, I had a chat with the lighting guy who gave me his crib sheet for the running order. I've copied your list and will print it out then compare with the one he actually delivered from the horse's mouth!

Judging by your few introductory remarks it may be we post reports of two performances and we will be wondering which one we were at!

My head has been buzzing ever since, with how do I report on this? So much to say and yet how much should be said and so many contradictory thoughts, yet also comparative thoughts with my prolonged history with Hayley. I am resorting to Pages (a Mac word program) to work it out first before posting. I can't compose directly here.

By the by, the main cause we didn't meet up may well be that I sat in the wrong bar for some time before finding the right one!

Peter S.

[Stephany]

Hi Drew, Peter and everyone

What can I say? I'm obviously very jealous but also delighted to hear that so many members from this forum went to see Will in concert.
I was told that Daisy Chute from All Angels was attending as well.

Did you take any pictures? Hope you had the opportunity to meet Will after the concert.

Stephany

[postscript]

Hi Drew and everyone.

First, a correction to my earlier post. It is in fact a 275 seater theatre from researching the theatre's web site. I said I would compose my report offline but the delay has been due to side-tracks. I think I have done sufficient background mulling in the mean time to be able to sit at the keyboard and just run with it. By the way Drew your continuity sheet is absolutely correct.

Let's start at the end when I finally met up with Will in the back bar, where he had (recklessly in my view) said he'd stand anyone interested a drink. I spent some while in the wrong bar so didn't sponge on him. He remembered me from chatting with him in July, when he was with Dame Malvina and Hayley. The place was bedlam. Possibly because I arrived late many were anxious to say their goodbyes. It seemed there may have been one or two professionals there, by invitation, as he implied he had some meetings to do. Effectively his conversation confirmed the impressions I had formed of his performance. In explaining them, I can give my impression of the evening in a positive light. He emphasised he had done this regularly in NZ but avoided confirming this was the first time he had actually done it in the UK. He seems to work ad hoc with various managements but has no permanent management structure behind him at the moment.

Having given that background let's make a very positive statement and say 'for a guy of 24 to run his own 'one-man show' in a country whose culture and customs he has not yet had time to fully grasp is one hell of a gig. Damned good show and well done him.

In his opening on stage he explained in effect this was why he had asked for requests by email, calling his show 'by request' because he hadn't a clue what we would want to hear. He put this over in a very positive way, by saying his desire was to entertain and in order to do that it was his duty to give the audience what the audience wanted, not what he felt he wanted to give them. An interesting way of looking at things but then retrospectively one might ask, who actually is he and how do I know what requests others have made, is that my type of evening? It leaves the show undefined.

Nonetheless he did it, he had a full theatre and the audience was entirely with him throughout. In many ways it was not a 'straight' theatrical evening but an amalgam of thoughts and ideas presented in a somewhat haphazard fashion. It was an informal entertainment like a social gathering. One might describe it as an extremely extended, or over-large pub back room event. That is his how he started and how he has performed in NZ. I'm not sure where he goes to from here in the UK.

When I chatted with him at St James, I did say to him that I thought he could do a one-man show as, simply, 'Will Martin'. His piano playing was better than competent. His singing good. What had impressed me then had been his spiel in between. He gave me the impression of being a good raconteur. I still think he can do that but to do so requires more polish, more script, possibly more daring.

Presumably working on a shoe-string budget, he chose to supplement with a very competent pianist and a string quartet using conventional instruments, whose web site is not working properly, so I cannot find out more about them. I had not heard of Pavao before and one must be careful (although a newspaper critic might not) that in such circumstances as these (effectively a 'try-out' theatre scenario) that circumstances did not allow sufficient rehearsal time. To my ears their first half sounded somewhat ragged but they had improved by the second half. Drew, you were arguably closer.

I had an interesting personal insight this evening. Why was I there? Because he was a Kiwi, had performed on the same stage as Hayley and I felt a certain Hayley loyalty in supporting one of her countrymen. Clearly I am very NZ orientated now! I also discovered that I much preferred a stage with women on it. That might have been why Will engaged the quartet (all girls). On the other hand he received many wolf whistles from a very large female contingent in the audience. It made me think, I would not have gone but for that Hayley connection. This insight might contribute to why Blake does not do anything for me at all, although The Fron possibly broke the mould because they are The Fron, in the same way as the Three Tenors attract my attention. For these reasons i could not help but compare the show with a Hayley show.

The answer was poles apart. It made me realise just how far Hayley has come over the years I have been following her. My last experience of her being two performances (one not officially so) of her River of Dreams tour. In that we are on a different planet. From where has she come? Still on a different planet. The worst microphone problems were never as abysmal as those regularly emitted by Will. It is extremely difficult (as we know from experience with Hayley, where we are talking of a level of criticism that simply does not even start in Will's territory) that amplification can be very tricky. It is only now, on the River of Dreams tour that she seems to have got the right team together.

Working at Will's level one is in a completely different theatrical style of entertainment and it is difficult to know where the problem lies: Will's microphone technique, the quality of the microphone, the expertise handling the equipment. I suspect in Will's case it is a combination of all three. His consonants exploded like a fire-cracker and his 'S's would have outdone the reptile house at London Zoo.

The whole show cries 'where is my producer?'. This poses the question, where is Hayley's? I have always assumed someone from Bedlam is sitting in an awkward place in the theatre listening out for this sort of thing. On first meeting, Ian Tilley introduced himself to me as her musical director. I have assumed each pianist since has fulfilled the same role but that can only be in terms of breathing and musical phrasing. Who's out in the auditorium, is she relying on the competence of the technician?

In the early days I had always assumed Jill would make a comment if something was untoward. I remember one case when she was there and I whispered to her that there was a background hum. She went backstage to see they were doing something about it and checked with me again and it was better but I could still hear it (she couldn't). Coming back a second time she said the technicians were aware of it backstage but did not understand how I could hear it where I was! She couldn't!

In any case between sound check and full auditorium, different acoustic effects apply. Perhaps Hayley is relying on her monitors (which Will had but did not appear to be looking at). Hayley has been known to give a discrete hand indicator to the amplification to increase or decrease. Perhaps then she does control everything. In which case I admire Hayley even more because something has been brought into play of which I had never previously thought, in relation to Hayley.

Comparing with Hayley is useful. Between them we have opposite ends of the same pole. One admires and realises just what a WOW Hayley is. Yes, okay, she started with a contract with Decca that enabled her to pay for a management team that gave her consistency of approach but the more one thinks about her show, the more one realises how it is all in every aspect Hayley. It is from that one source that comes the fluidity of total professionalism in every aspect of her show.

I turn to acting as an analogy. There are some actors who just walk on a stage and you've got what you want. Others, who by the time of public performance, can give you what you want but they need directing to it. Will may be one of those.

However, let's give the guy a break. To do what he did the other night takes a mountain of nerve and still only works if he's got the talent. He's got talent. He's a damned good pianist. I could see the detail of attention to his musical phrasing by watching his feet. He was pedantic on the notes he held with the sustain pedal in the middle of some fast phrasing but his keyboard technique to my mind was more pub forte, lacking refinement.

I found his singing erratic which may be his microphone technique but he can indeed sing. He really showed he can put subtleness and range into his voice when he handled the extracts from West Side Story.

Like Hayley he has total command of the stage and is very at home on it but Hayley is singularly disciplined, every move she makes is smoothly fluid with intent, Will is somewhat jerky (okay, that could be 'his style'). He is also exceedingly quick-witted. As he introduced the quartet a train rumbled into the platform above our head and he promptly responded '..and as you can hear they have come by train!' On another occasion he responded to an audience shout, 'Oh, thanks Mum'.

His last part was also good, for his Dvorak closing (Hovis Going Home ad) he brought in an orchestral backing providing a solid closure wich was very well handled.

So, in closing, where are we? In my perceptions of Will in July I saw him more upmarket and able to do an entire show on his own. Perhaps he has not yet sufficient material in English idiom to try that. Perhaps he does not want to lose his 'pub back-room' style of presentation, preferring to 'let it all hang out'--which it does!

With Hayley, she is one of those people who 'just goes on stage and does her bit'. What you realise her performance is based on, without it really registering with you, is 'practise, practise, practise' and single-minded dedication to the job in hand. She has an instinctive awareness of all aspects of theatre. What Will needs is someone sitting in that theatre during rehearsal and yelling 'Hold it! Can we have a slower and smoother lighting change and a mix rather a complete fade and up? By the way, would it be worth trying a guard on the mike to keep your lips off it?'

Peter S.

Hi Mods. I've played with the type settings a bit to make it more easily readable. PS

[nicola]

I only just got his album. I waited 18 months for it! I first heard him sing 'Into the West' and thought he had a stunning voice. I was really excited for him.

I was a bit disappointed by the album though. I found it a bit bland. I'm so upset that I couldn't enjoy it after so much build up. I will still follow him though, has he has such a beautiful voice. I thought that he sounded a lot like Aled Jones as I listened though it? Did anyone else find that?

[Ross]

Here is an article from The Sunday News 8th Feb about him doing a duet with Rebecca Wright. Looks like Will is taking part in a concert in Auckland on Feb 21st

[scoobedoo]

Hi everyone, when I was on tour recently in the UK and was in Scotland Edinburgh.I purchased two Cd's of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards titled “Spirit of the Glen” this was recorded back in 2007 and on one of the tracks I heard a voice that sounded very familiar,and I hadn't noticed this when I purchased the CD. The track was “Mull of Kintyre” and who sung the track? Will Martin, and what a wonderful version it is too. Backed by Jon Cohen (producer of the CD ) and Darren Loveday guitars and the Dragoon Guards. This is a fabulous CD and it was runner up at the classical Brit awards in 2007.

Well done Will Martin, good stuff loved it.

cheers,

Rodders CH CH NZ

[nicola]

Will Martin grew on me. It appears, however, that he has been dropped. He toured with Starlight Express for a while...

[Richard]

Will Martin seems to have disappeared completely. His webside is dead too: www.willmartin.net/

Richard

[Nordly]

Um, no it isn't Richard. At least, it works for me!

~Nordly

[eva]

I am not very good at "surfing" on the net yet. I was wondering how you find out that a singer

has been dropped from their label....like apparantly Will Martin and Elizabeth Marvelly

have....just curious!! Thanks!

[Dave]

Nov 15, 2009 13:14:40 GMT Nordly said:

Um, no it isn't Richard. At least, it works for me!

~Nordly

Hi Nordly,

I had a look too and it works, but I think Richard probably means it hasn't been updated for about 6 months. The last forum post was an "is anybody here" post on 6th October.

Perhaps it's not dead, just snoozing?

Cheers, Dave

[nicola]

Nov 15, 2009 13:29:36 GMT eva said:

I am not very good at "surfing" on the net yet. I was wondering how you find out that a singer

has been dropped from their label....like apparantly Will Martin and Elizabeth Marvelly

have....just curious!! Thanks!

Well, they never come out with such news in public. It's largely through word of mouth between those in the know in the industry, but also, a lack of activity from the artist is an indicator. If Will was still signed, he wouldn't necessarily being making albums, but he would at least be getting activity on the live circuits and collaborating with other artists.

Best way of telling is how their album did. If it didn't sell, they get dropped. It's simple as that.

But, I do know for a fact that Elizabeth Marvelly was dropped, and I have been told the same for Will Martin. Can't name the source, I'm afraid.