Vince Martin – If The Jasmine Don’t Get You… The Bay Breeze Will

Vince Martin was part of the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s, and he struck up a friendship with fellow songster Fred Neil. Martin eventually migrated southward to Coconut Grove, FL, where the sun and sea became his muse. And the six songs on If The Jasmine Don’t Get You… The Bay Breeze Will have a decidedly breezy feel.

This is folk-rock with a twist of the improvisatory. Martin recorded Bay Breeze in Nashville with a crop of the finest session players of the day, including Kenneth Buttrey, Charlie McCoy and Norbert Putnam – the same musicians who had worked on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline album. The strength of the backing players allows Martin’s songs to fully blossom – the title track runs for more than 13 minutes. According to Martin, “They wouldn’t quit! I wanted to stop singing, and the fuc*#rs wouldn’t quit! So I said, ‘OK, let’s go.’”