Martin Newell (musician)

Martin Newell (born 1953), also known as "the Wild Man of Wivenhoe", is an English rock and roll musician, poet and author. He grew up in an army family in various parts of England and the Far East. His music is guitar pop with clever lyrics and jangly, upbeat, guitar-centric arrangements.

Related Topics:
1953 - Wivenhoe - English - Rock and roll - Poet - Author - Guitar - Pop

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During the 1980s he led a band called The Cleaners From Venus, who mostly released their work on cassettes (see Cassette culture) outside the traditional music distribution channels. In the 1990s he began working as a solo artist with more conventional production values.

Related Topics:
1980s - Cassette culture - 1990s

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His first solo album The Greatest Living Englishman, produced by XTC's Andy Partridge, was an artistic triumph. Comnercially it remains his most popular and successful album, but each of his subsequent albums is of interest.

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In 2004 Newell released an album of light jazz songs, The Light Programme. This showed his talents for writing with other people in mind and in late 2005 American singer Richard Shelton releases a jazz vocal album called 'Top Cat' which features mainly Newell compositions.

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Newell's songs have also been recorded by Miki Huber, Kerry Getz, R. Stevie Moore and Alphaville.

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He is better known to some as a poet and author; he has released several volumes of poetry (often in collaboration with James Dodds) and a memoir called This Little Ziggy, about his youth and his days in The Mighty Plod, a Colchester-based glam band in the 1970s.

Related Topics:
James Dodds - Glam

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