The Wake

The Greek columns that frame the historic stage at the Pantages theatre were given an epic sound to accompany its epic appearance on November 15th when Martin Sexton brought a guitar and his voice to Minneapolis.

Two microphones, an acoustic six-string, and an extraordinarily dynamic and affecting voice have brought this soulful troubadour to the Cities many times. This was his first time playing in a Minneapolis theatre, however, and he welcomed it by often stepping away from the microphone and inviting the acoustics of the stage to carry his majestic falsetto throughout the golden theatre. There it fell on the ears of more than a thousand of his most faithful.

Sexton’s live shows have a reputation among folk enthusiasts to be joyfully invigorating and uniquely powerful in nature. Sexton often plays solo, as was the case on this stop, and he conjures a certain energy with the audience that feels both intimate and genuine.

“I find that, for me personally, I have the best connection with the audience when I’m alone. I find that it’s a much more personal experience for me and I think for the audience as well. I just think I’m that much more vulnerable and that much more open and that much more able to communicate,” said Sexton.

Sexton’s studio albums sound quite different than his live performances, as there is much more instrumentation and production involved in his studio efforts. He doesn’t prefer one to the other, but considers them separate entities.

“I find that the [live] show has a certain fizzle and a certain sensuality that I just I think is perfect. I like the records, too; I just think they are what they are and the live thing is what it is,” said Sexton.

Sexton has a devout following that spreads all the way back to his hometown of Syracuse, New York. Sexton grew up one of 14 children and says that he wasn’t successful in the typical grade school endeavors. For this reason, he considers himself lucky to have discovered his love of music at an early age.

“When I was in grammer school, I wasn’t a track or football star or a real academic success, but I wanted to have an angle in finding who I am. I’d been listening to music all my life and one day I figured maybe if I could play guitar, that might help me identify who I am. Maybe even attract a girl my way,” said Sexton.

Inspired particularly by guitar-driven records like Frampton Comes Alive, Sexton picked up the instrument and hasn’t stopped playing since.

“As a nine year old kid listening to that record with the guitar playing and that crowd action that he got. That was a prime example of what one could accomplish with the guitar,” said Sexton.

Sexton also remembers singing Stevie Wonder songs in the schoolyard and having kids gather around to hear him play. Though his music got him some attention at school, Sexton eventually realized that his hometown and his family weren’t giving him the support he felt he needed.

At one time, Sexton considered himself the ‘black sheep’ of his family, which he sings about on the title track of his Black Sheep album. Here he contemplates leaving his home because he feels his music isn’t understood. “You see these people around here say I’m crazy for singing out loud like I do here on the street/ But I got my song and if I don’t sing it it’s going to burn a hole in me.”

So Sexton packed up and went to Boston, where he heard there was a great coffee house scene for emerging folk singers. Getting booked into those coffee houses, however, took some time. Before he landed his first show, he would play the subway stations in the mornings and move up to the streets of Harvard Square in the evenings and on the weekends.

“From the streets to the clubs wasn’t so much a jump as it was baby steps. People would drop little lines in my case or come up to me and say ‘my boyfriend is in a band and they’d love for you to open for them.’ So I gradually stepped out of the street into the venues,” said Sexton.

Here he made a living for several years before he pulled together 800 one-dollar bills from his street playing, which he used to record his first album, In The Journey, in a friend’s attic in 1990.

The album helped to spread Sexton’s sound, and soon he found himself playing larger venues and traveling outside of the Boston area.

“Then that started growing to bigger clubs and other opportunities and traveling and making more records and its all sort of grown from literally the ground up. It’s been a really wonderful, slow and strong and steady progression,” said Sexton.

Sexton says he appreciates the years on the road and the slow build up of an extremely supportive fan base.

“It’s kind of cool because I have a deep appreciation of who I am and where I am in my musical life right now and in my personal and spiritual and emotional and every other aspect of my life, as well,” said Sexton.

Sexton’s music tells of his spiritual and emotional growth, in a way that suits his soulful folk style. He draws on a wide variety of influences from gospel, to the blues, to country, to classic rock and roll. He’s borrowed from nearly everywhere on the American musical landscape and masterfully blends all of these styles together to create a signature sound that is only Sexton.

While his music has a very deep spiritual feel and conviction, Sexton attributes this to no single secular religion or practice.

“I think I’ve just been blessed with a certain open-mindedness that’s availed me to a certain spiritual awareness. I just feel like I’m open to anything whether it’s a piece of Catholicism that I’ve retained, or some Native American belief, or some Pagan ritual, or some Jewish or Buddhist or whatever. There’s a little bit of all of it in my spiritual sauce,” said Sexton.

The open road has been no stranger to Sexton in his many years of relentless national tours since just before the release of his first big label album, Black Sheep, on Atlantic Records in 1996. He’s been through Minnesota a half a dozen times and isn’t without a few favorite Minnesotan stops. One St. Paul establishment is even acknowledged in one of Sexton’s songs. In “Diner,” Sexton’s opening line is, “You might have seen one out in Minnesota.” Sexton says he is singing of one of his favorite places to stop and eat on the road, Mickey’s Diner on 7th Street and St. Peter in downtown St. Paul.

“I love it because it’s a real old school diner. It’s the real thing. The characters that eat there are everyone from postal workers to police men to insurance salesman to maybe even a down on his luck traveling gambler and a musician, like myself. I just love that slice of life that you get when you walk into places like that,” said Sexton.

Sexton often paints a down-home, archetypal image of Middle America in his folk tunes. He has admitted to having a nostalgic feeling for that 20th century diner feel and says his kitchen is filled with old diner antiques he has collected.

Many of Sexton’s songs are filled with imagery of a mysterious yet welcoming America, which he has loved to travel. He often sings wistfully of his ‘freedom of the road.’ His wandering nature seems an indivisible part of who he is and what his music is about.

On “Glory Bound,” Sexton gives great insight into the mind of an inspired wanderer who loves the uncertainty and spontaneity of life on the road.

“I’m taking my chance on the wind/ I’m packing up all my bags/ I’m making the mistakes I gotta make/ Oh then I’m glory bound.”

Sexton says that nothing compares to being on the road and connecting with thousands of strangers and the extraordinary experiences that come along with his musical and nomadic lifestyle.

“It seems like every night there’s an uplifting experience whether it’s at a show or someone I meet out on the road. Seeing someone cry or hearing young people laugh or having hundreds of people surrounding you singing in four-part harmony. When the crowd is dancing and clapping and moving and laughing and crying and screaming and stomping, it’s just a beautiful thing.”