Featured Songbay Artist: Martin Hampton

This week we take a look at the work of the runner up of the 2020 Songbay Lyric Writing Competition – Martin Hampton.

Martin Hampton

“How did you get in to songwriting?”

I was given my first acoustic guitar and a John Pearce learn to play guitar book when I was eleven. I drove everyone mad by trying to learn ‘She’ll be coming ’round the mountain’. My fingers were red raw afterwards!
Around the early 1970’s  I was introduced to the music of James Taylor, who remains a major influence on me.
I remember the chords in the JT manuscript books that seemed impossible for me to form and it was only years later that I realised these were arbitrary and had no relation to the actual guitar positions. It was a revelation to eventually see JT perform close-up, at the Barbican Centre, London, and the mystery was solved!

Quite apart from an incredible voice, James Taylor has a consummate ease when performing and has effortless guitar style which belies the true complexity. To me he is the complete songwriter.
I began writing poems mostly while at school. Some of these poems did become songs,
but I still have a folder full of odd writings from that time. It soon became apparent to me that simply
writing words without some recognition as to musicality made for poor composition. I have
always liked rhymes and finding words whose syllables can be split across notes.
I was experimenting with multitracking quite early only because the bands I joined were
constantly breaking up! I decided it would be better to try to do the whole process from
writing to production myself. Affordable kit was in short supply and I first used two tape
recorders to try to produce multitracked pieces. It is astonishing what can now be achieved
by even the simplest of home studio set ups in terms of the equipment and software
available today.

“How do you approach your song writing?”

It is a matter of great debate as to whether a song begins with the lyrics or the tune. I still
really do not know. What I can say is that I can always tell when a lyric finds the right tune,
or the tune conjures up the right lyric. I have tried to sit down purposely and write a
complete song in one go but for me it seldom results in a homogeneous composition and
quite frankly often sounds like an existing piece.

I consider the hardest skill to master when either writing lyrics, composing tunes, or engineering
finished works, is to know when to stop tinkering. When editing you can read the words or
hear the piece hundreds of times and probably will always see or hear some other
element you feel compelled to tweak. For me therefore, it is always better to put down a lyric or partially
mastered song and return to it later. It is amazing what can happen when you come back
and take a fresh look.

My approach to songs is nothing radical and I mostly keep to songs that have common arrangement structures, ie., verse, chorus, middle eight, etc. In the arrangement I generally start with the acoustic guitar and then experiment with different
voicings and backings. Eventually I get something which I like the sound of. It helps to have
a nice sounding instrument. My theory is that if I like my song then someone else may like
it too.
And therein lies the whole reason I now use Songbay; to put my tunes where they might
just be heard by that someone. Will I sell a million? One can but hope, but for me the point
is to enjoy writing lyrics and creating my music.

‘Good Grace and Hope’ is the title of Martin’s winning lyric of the Songbay Lyric Writing Competition 2020.

Martin’s lyric is about the life of a musician ‘on the road’. The lyric skillfully incorporated the required competition words of ‘Ramble, Flamboyant and Hope’. It was easy for the judges to see how the lyric would fit with music-it’s natural scansion (rhythmic flow), equal verse and chorus lengths, strong narrative, make it in many respects, the perfect lyric!

If you would like to learn more about Martin’s work or wish to contact him regarding songwriting collaboration or lyric writing work, please use the link below:

Martin Hampton’s Artist Page at Songbay >>