I’ll be the first to admit that my musical tastes do not align with the great majority. My favorite genre is progressive rock (prog, as it is now known), but I also enjoy blues, jazz, new age and some classical music. In my 5,000-plus LP collection, friends find precious few million-sellers. I figured that I could always have access to the popular artists of the day, should I wish to hear them.
As a result, I spent my nearly 30 years working in record stores seeking out obscure, unusual, and interesting albums that weren’t on the charts. Sometimes I’d just look at a cover and decide to give it a try. (See my article in Issue 223, “Judging Albums by Their Covers.”)
I can’t recall what made me look at Martin Briley’s records – it might have been the cover art or the fact that he was, at one time, a member of the prog rock group Greenslade. For whatever reason, I’m really glad I got the three albums he did for Mercury Records in the early 1980s.
Martin Steven Briley has been composing, recording, and performing for over 50 years. In 1970, he managed to get the attention of producer George Martin, resulting in session work as an arranger, vocalist, and guitarist. Aside from his solo albums, he has written songs recorded by a wide array of artists, including Kenny Loggins, Pat Benatar, Nana Mouskouri, Night Ranger, Gregg Allman, Peter Tork, Jeff Healey, and Barry Manilow, to name just a few. He has performed on sessions and tours with a similarly diverse list of artists. Among them are Donna Summer, Meat Loaf, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Tom Jones, and more.
If you’ve heard his name, it’s probably due to his 1983 hit song, “The Salt in my Tears,” which was played a lot on MTV and got to number 36 on the Billboard charts. Unfortunately, sustained mainstream success eluded him. A compilation album, The Mercury Years, was released in 2005. From his website: “Because of my successful involvement with the previous album artwork (two Grammy nominations), Universal asked me to come up with something for the boxed set of my work they were planning. My mission was to make their title ‘The Mercury Years’ more entertaining; I’m not sure if Universal was amused."
His first album, Fear of the Unknown, was recorded in New York City with a mix of British and American musicians. Briley contributed guitars, bass, percussion, and lead and backing vocals. The cover art by Norman Walker strikes me as an homage to Rene Magritte.
Briley’s songs alternate between playful and serious. An example of the former is “I Feel Like a Milkshake,” a tune about an encounter at a diner. It starts with rapid-fire multi-tracked a cappella vocals: “She wore an apron that was covered in gravy stains, she had a little green book and she had varicose veins, I was tired, I was hungry, I was ready to snap, she dropped the steaming gumbo right in my lap.”
The title track is more serious, featuring a string quartet arranged by Briley and British violinist Graham Preskett. Preskett’s credits include work with Mott the Hoople, Gerry Rafferty, Alan Parsons, and even Whitesnake!
The musicianship, arrangements, and production are all exemplary. As someone who doesn’t often pay attention to, or even care about, lyrics (see “I Hear Music” in Issue 141), I am impressed with Briley’s clever and thoughtful turns of phrase.
His second album, One Night with a Stranger, yielded the aforementioned hit “The Salt in my Tears.” For my taste, it’s his strongest work – I like every song on it. Backing musicians included Pat Mastellotto, who has played with King Crimson and is currently a member of Stick Men with bassist and Chapman Stick virtuoso Tony Levin. One track, “Put Your Hands on the Screen,” is a put-down of televangelists that was released as the follow-up single to “Salt.” That one didn’t catch on, and subsequent releases failed to generate any chart action.
“She’s So Flexible” again shows his playful side, with a circus calliope keyboard intro and lyrics such as “She can be hard as steel, but she can soothe like lanolin, and even when she’s busy, she finds time to squeeze me in.”
The title track tells the cautionary tale of a woman who had it all but needed the thrill of one-night stands.
Dangerous Moments was the third and final album of Briley’s Mercury contract. This time his backing musicians included guitarist G.E. Smith (Saturday Night Live band), drummer Anton Fig (Paul Shaffer’s band on The David Letterman Show), keyboardist Peter Wood (Al Stewart and others), bassist Carmine Rojas (too many big names to list), and percussionist Ralph MacDonald (numerous credits in both jazz and pop). The album was produced by the legendary Phil Ramone. The title track is one of the standouts on the record.
My favorite cut, however, is “School for Dogs.” After all these years, I’m not sure if he’s referring to a pet or possibly a bad relationship.
After leaving Mercury Records he worked with a lot of artists as a session player and touring musician. I found this story from his website (https://martinbriley.com/) rather amusing:
In the late ’80s Martin was on one of his many writing trips to L.A., he was staying at the infamous Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood and in his room was a rented Fender Rhodes electric piano.
One afternoon Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette, Michael Jackson, Wilson Phillips) came over to write. They were working on a song called “You’ll Do It Anyway,” and were taking turns sitting at the piano gradually developing the song. They were at that stage where they were searching for the next section, just playing what they had so far, over and over.
After about an hour of this, the phone rang. It was the hotel guest staying right above them, probably calling to complain.
“Hi, this is the guy upstairs; I think I know the chord you’re looking for.”
He didn’t, but what a nice way to complain.
Or did he?
There was a long break (over 20 years) before he released his next album, It Comes in Waves. There’s a wide range of styles on it. The title track is a slow majestic number that has elements of the mellotron in “Strawberry Fields Forever,” a backwards guitar solo, a haunting chorus, and a string quartet at the fadeout. Briley’s voice is a bit less pure (comes with age) but still inviting.
“The Church of Disney” is a more upbeat number with great guitar chords that remind me of “The Salt in My Tears.” In the chorus, he sings, “I want to belong to the Church of Disney, where every ending’s happy, nothing goes wrong in the Church of Disney, don’t you wish that life was like a fairy tale, wishes do come true.”
“Big Sun” and “I Don’t Think She Misses Me at All” switch gears and feature acoustic guitars, although the latter song breaks into gospel-infused female backing vocals at the end.
“Me and My Invisible Friend” is a bouncy number that opens with a Stevie Wonder–style keyboard riff.
“The Massage” is a dreamy bluesy/jazzy number about seduction. The lyrics are quite tongue-in-cheek – “She’ll be thrilled by the chocolates, she’ll be moved by the glossage, but she’ll quiver, when I deliver, the massage.”
All in all, it’s a great album that I only recently stumbled onto.
His subsequent album from 2011, Iceberg Shrinking, is another compilation with alternate takes. He’s still making music for movies and television. I hope you’ll be joining the fans who wonder, “Why wasn’t this guy famous?”
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