Beverley Martyn, the English folk singer known for her collaborations with her former husband John Martyn, as well as her beloved solo work, has died.
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“It is with profound sadness that we announce that Beverley passed away peacefully at home on 27 April 2026,” her family confirmed in a statement. “Beverley was a remarkable woman of great inner strength. She was beautiful, intelligent, warm, and kind.”
Martyn was 79.
Born Beverley Kutner near Coventry in 1947, she moved to London as a teenager to attend drama school. She soon became part of London’s burgeoning folk scene in the early 1960s, learning guitar from her then-boyfriend, British folk legend Bert Jansch.
Martyn recorded her first single, “Babe I’m Leaving You,” with The Levee Breakers in 1965, according to The Guardian. She launched her solo career a year later, releasing “Happy New Year” on Durham Records.
That single featured Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, who was a session musician at the time. Throughout her career, Martyn also worked with artists like Levon Helm, Dave Pegg, Richard Thompson, John Renbourn, Ralph McTell, Davy Graham, and Sandy Denny.
She also befriended Paul Simon while he lived in the UK, which led to her contributing to Simon and Garfunkel’s album, Bookends. She performed with him at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
In 1969, she met and quickly married John Martyn. They formed a musical duo and released two albums together in 1970.
However, their musical partnership was short-lived. Under pressure from his label, John resumed his solo career, leaving Beverley out of the spotlight.
“My career was over”, she recalled in 2014, per The Guardian. “I had my hands full. I did the odd gig with John, and the odd one on my own, but I had no future.”
Beverley Martyn Enjoyed a Career Resurgence in the 1990s
In 1980, Beverley divorced John because of his alcohol and substance abuse issues. She explained, “There was love there – it was the drink and the bad drugs, the very heavy ones, that changed his disposition, and they made life unbearable for anyone around him.”
She remained exiled from the music industry until Loudon Wainwright convinced her to join him on tour in the 1990s. With her children now grown, she cemented her comeback in 1998 with the album No Frills.
Her final studio album, The Phoenix and the Turtle, was released in 2014. It featured a previously unheard song she wrote with her close friend Nick Drake in the 1970s.