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African story

from In my blood by Johnathan Martin

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about

Its a song that came together one fine morning while jamming with my brother Aidan Martin in our small flat in Lynnwood ,Pretoria.
We were listening to a great new discovery 'Ali Farka Toure' , the 'Talking Timbuktu' album Ry Cooder had put together. Frankly we were totally blown to smithereens by this music, and our guitar styles, both Aidan and myself, started to have that sound. we called it 'AFROROCK'. MARTIN BROTHERS style!!! A lot of South African guitarists started to listen to this album and claimed they were hip to the 'Ali' style and jumped on the so called 'bandwagon'. It happened a lot, especially with 'Piet Botha and our acoustic duo we had going. A lot of acts would just start playing the songs we played, and now I mean our repertoire, the classics or popular covers we turned into our own. You couldn't tell , you thought this was an original of ours. This would happen more and more, and venue's too. we'd find them and get them going, then everyone would just jump on in there. But, as time went by, the favour was never reciprocated. Dog eat dog, and if you not in the 'click' then you're out of luck and work! African story! We come up with it you steal it, and we must say thank you.

lyrics

I can see their thoughts,
I can see their fears.
Living on the Breadline heats my head.
As long as the king lives ,
we'll be alright.
It's a long time coming ,
African story you're the same.

credits

from In my blood, released November 22, 2019
Written and arranged by J S MARTIN & A E MARTIN 'inms' @ SAMRO
vocals & guitars -Johnathan Martin
Bass - Tertius du Plessis
Drums - Leslie Stuart
Guitar - Aidan Martin

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Johnathan Martin Pretoria, South Africa

Born in 1977 in South Africa, to a musical family, Johnathan Martin started to picture himself as performing musician from the tender age of 10 tears old. Classical guitar, then piano, and finally getting his first Strat copy at 13 years old. Taking music as a subject at school put the cello in his hands, and learnt to really improv when he joined the full time touring band Jack Hammer in '97. ... more

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