Martin Sexton pares Beatles classics down to the essentials for his Abbey Road Show, October 7

The Fab Four’s most-celebrated album was a formative influence on the veteran American singer-songwriter who’s headed to the BlueShore at CapU

Martin Sexton

 
 

Martin Sexton performs his Abbey Road Show at the BlueShore at CapU on October 7 at 7:30 pm

 

THE BEATLES’ 1969 RELEASE Abbey Road is widely considered not just the band’s best LP, but one of the greatest records of all time. That makes for an interesting challenge to any artist wishing to pay tribute to it. On the one hand, you know the songs—we’re talking “Come Together”, “Oh! Darling”, and “Here Comes the Sun”—are inherently great no matter who’s performing them. On the other hand, how do you even hope to match the originals?

The answer, in the case of Martin Sexton, is to take things in a completely different direction. Sexton’s current tour finds him playing Abbey Road in its entirety. Rather than attempting to re-create the studio magic conjured up by the Fab Four and George Martin, the veteran American singer-songwriter pares the songs back to the essentials and delivers them with only his soulful, lived-in voice and his signature fingerstyle acoustic guitar.

 
 

“The reason I wanted to tour performing Abbey Road is because it’s the album that lit my fire as a kid,” Sexton said in an interview with The Music Universe earlier this year. “I discovered it in the ’80s in the basement all scratched up in a box with some other LPs from my older siblings. It’s the most influential album that informs my writing, performing and recording style.”

After paying tribute to Liverpool’s favourite sons, Sexton plays a set made up of songs from across his 30-plus-year career. According to Setlist.fm, he changes it up every night, which means that fans at his upcoming BlueShore at CapU concert won’t know exactly what to expect. Given that the selections on this tour have included Martin originals like “Glory Bound” and “Diner”, covers of artists including Prince (“Purple Rain”) and Rufus & Chaka Khan (“Ain’t Nobody”), and traditional gospel and folk standards such as “This Little Light of Mine” and “You Are My Sunshine”, absolutely no one will go home disappointed.

 
 
 
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John Lucas
John Lucas

John Lucas has covered music and the arts for longer than he cares to think about. He can also be found playing his guitar in dodgy rehearsal spaces and low-rent venues in and around Vancouver.

 
 

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MUSICStir VancouverMartin Sexton, Blueshore at CapU