FATEA AWARDS 2009

The Fatea Awards, recognise achievement in 2009. All of the award winners were featured on the site during the year.

No one artist is allowed to win more than one award, though many were considered in a number of catagories

The awards come with plenty of kudos and merit, but sadly no big tv show, speeches and trophies. In each catagory we announce the winner and the two artists that came close to beating them to the winning post.

We also have three special awards. The Tradition Award is presented to the act that have traditional folk at the root of their sound and use it to inspire new songs, tunes and arrangements. The Innovation Award is presented for a context or concept that widens the appeal of roots based music. The Lifetime Achievement Award speaks for it's self.

There was also a discussion as to recognising people behind the desk. It was a close call and it is something we will definitely consider for next year. If we had gone for a technical award this year, Stu Hanna from Megson would have taken the award having produced the albums for two award winners. So Stu take a bow.

With out further ado or guilding of the lily, the top performers in the 2009 Fatea Music Awards are:

For the first time ever, The Fatea Lifetime Achievement Award goes to an artist that didn't make it all the way through the year. In fact the artist in question only made it as far as January 29th when his death from double pneumonia was announced.

John Martyn OBE, was born Iain David McGeachy on the 11th of January 1948. In his sixty year, he managed to have forty three of them in music, recording twenty studio albums also the way plus a number of live albums and collaborations with many other artists.

He was a guitarist and innovator as well an being an exceptional songwriter. Some considered a number of tracks on the "One World" album to have been the origins of what would become known as trip-hop.

As with many of the truly great singer-songwriters, John Martyn had a tortured soul, one which lead him to seriously abuse his body with both drink and drugs, causing damage that he would never physically recover from fully.

Having been initially tutored by Hamish Imlach, John Martyn developed what was, at the time a distinctive guitar style and complemented this by adding a slide to his vocal that saw the lyrics tumbling into each other. In doing so he influenced a generation of musicians and singers, an influence that can still be felt today.

It is for all his achievements that we are proud to name the Fatea Lifetime Achievement Award winner as the late, great John Martyn..