Entertainment For Lively Minds
John Martyn's Estate
Posted by Travis Bickle on 1 February 2010 - 7:47am.
I just stumbled across this, which suggests that John Martyn's estate was worth only 82,000 pounds once all his affairs were settled.
Now, I know he probably wasn't the sort of person who carefully invested in ISAs and nurtured a pension fund.
But, still, that seems like a pretty poor return for an artist of his calibre and success.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1243862/Singer-songwriter-J...
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I have to say that I'm not surprised by the amount...
He never sold many records, and was part of the music industry in the era when touring wasn't much of a money-spinner. Plus drinks are expensive.
death and taxes
true that doesn't seem much, but as the story states, he actually left an estate valued at £312,000, which means he had to settle £230,000 in debts and any death duties he was assessed for. Again, not mega-bucks, but the sad fact is that however much he was revered for his music, he hadn't sold many records in recent years would probably have been living hand to mouth on the royalties from his classic albums and the money he made from his live shows.
more death and texes
Not surprised either. I think many of us have (had) a very unreal view of how much money musicians make.
Some of course are insanely rich. I was watching the Pink Floyd Technicolor Dream stuff last night and there was Nick Mason sitting in front of what appeared to be an actual Formula One Ferrari (Villeneuve's from the number). This appeared to be in his sitting room, dusting must be a bugger?
I also remember being told about a trainee solicitor, not massively well paid as a trainee, who was nonetheless earning more than her other half who was a member of a very well known regularly touring band.
Without being too trainspotterish there wouldnt have been any IHT (Death duties) on Martyn's estate, it appears to be below the limit. My bet is it was back taxes that took most of it.
Forza Gilles
It is indeed Villeneuve's. It's the one in which he won his first Grand Prix.
Nick Mason is loaded.
If Nick Mason is loaded...
...and he has, what, 2 songwriting credits on Floyd albums, what's Waters worth?
I suspect his other, non-musical businesses do OK for him
Ten-Tenths is, I gather, the biggest supplier of classic racing/sports cars to the film industry but I presume having 10% of Dark Side Of The Moon brings in a quid or two.
I don't think either of those streams would amount to much
With very rare exceptions old catalogue doesn't amount to more than just a trickle and he wasn't a big headlining act. His best chance of making money would have been through publishing royalties on "May You Never", which was covered by quite a few people. I think you're going to see a lot more stories like this in the next few years. When John Entwistle of the Who died the estate had to sell off all his instruments and his home to cover the amount of owed to the Revenue. And he'd been with one of the biggest groups in the world for forty years. These guys don't make as much as you think, often don't have the best money management, tend to have a string of ex-wives and lots of dependents and pay their tax well in arrears. When they die the music stops, to coin a phrase, and the accounting is often brutal.
I recall him saying
that he earned as much from May You Never as from everything else in the rest of his career combined.
Sweet Little Mystery
Didn't Wet Wet Wet have a hit with this?
Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrggghhh!
That was a different song! That wasn't as good!
That's me telt
That's me telt
:-)
No prahblem!
Yeah but no but yeah
Different song, but enough of Martyn's original was ripped off (in the chorus, I believe) for John to get a co-writers' credit, along with the Wets.
Really?
I never knew that.
Sweet little royalties
Didn't they manage to snaffle some of Van Morrison's lyrics at the same time? That's got to spread the royalties more thinly.
Yeah they did now you mention it
Some of 'A Sense of Wonder' found its way in there as well.
Do you value a life by
the ammount left in the will or by the quality of the life lived? I suspect John doesn't really give a hoot about how much is left and is delighted that he led a rip roaring, rumbustious, creative life.
I'm reminded of the old story about the 2 guys on their way to heaven: one has a perfect body, is smartly presented and walks up to St. Peter asking to come into heaven. The second is whizzing along on a skate board, bottle of beer in hand, looking decidely the worse for wear and asks if he can turn back and go around again.
The estate valuation looks a little odd because £312k is exactly the upper limit for 1 person's IHT allowance.
I don't think anybody's trying to value his life
On the other hand I think it's tempting to try and place a fan's value on a life and that, in a way, is as limited as an accountants. Very often rock musicians have devoted their lives to their career and that's a sacrifice that's had to be made by the people close to them as well. I'm not saying this is the case with John Martyn but very often other people have had to pay for the rip-roaring, rumbustious, creative life. They're the ones at the funeral.
Another way to look at it
(which we can't because we don't have the figures) is to ask how much money has flowed through his bank and whether he was a spender or a saver. I take the point about poor management and his earnings likely to be less than popular imagination might have, but we don't know the full score.
We're assuming that because he's ended up with what seems to us as not much, he hasn't earned all that much. It might well that he's earned and spent a great deal in his life, had a jolly good time and ended up just a little in credit. In which case, well done John!
I don't think anybody's trying to value his life
You could look at the value an artist in terms of what it would cost (in today's money) to recreate his life and career. As a starter for ten - the cost in time and petrol driving up and down the motorway to gigs building the career (including tea and refreshments at The Blue Boar). Any other suggestions?
Then why is everyone getting so hung up
about the value of his will? Isn't it enough that he made some fabulous records, entertained a lot of people, had bucketloads of fun and shuttled off this mortal coil not wanting to have changed a thing?
Thankfully
His musical legacy will still be around long after the money has gone.
Lest we forget
This is part of that lasting legacy
Brilliant...
I don't think I've ever heard an acoustic guitar sound so much like an acoustic guitar as his does in that performance.
Double brilliant
That particular performance is, this morning at least, quite possibly my favourite singing ever...
I don't quite understand...
....I haven't read ther original story but is there an assumption going on that he paid/his estate had to pay UK taxes? Is all this tax related talk not UK-law based (£312,000 upper limits etc)?
He lived in the Republic of Ireland for years - and possibly one reason for that was what I believe are more preferential tax arrangements for those of an artistic occupation. But then I don't imagine john Martyn ever spent much of life thinking about taxes.
from the numbers being bandied about here
it looks like he was in the UK tax net. In Ireland there are no death duties and there's no probate tax. The only way your estate can be nailed is that the Revenue decide to go looking for income tax which should have, but wasn't, paid to them. The amount of 'income' that Martyn would have had while resident in the Republic of Ireland would hardly have been so much that his liability would have come to what it did. In other words, whilst 'earning' and living in the ROI, he didn't have to pay too much tax; it's the earnings that he possibly forgot to pay tax on, earlier in his career, that did the damage.
I'll get my anorak.
Is this it?
Valparaiso Productions Ltd. - Lowering the tone since 1974.
Boom -
and indeed - boom!
I suggest we both get our coats...
and that's exactly why this pub was a poorer place
during Senor Valparaiso's sabbatical
Brilliant!
Half a bag of Cheese & Onion distributed evenly across the keyboard. Good work, fella.
When Archie said
he lives in Granada...
But it's a Cortina..
Mark V Ghia, I believe..
But it's not a grey Cortina
with a whiplash aerial and racing trim.
quick tax whinge
i expect a lot of Worders are self employed and already know this, but it's quite easy to get behind with taxes when freelance ... this is uppermost in my mind after having done the online self assessment thing (deadline yesterday) as i now know how much i owe HMRC for the 2008/09 tax year ... sadly my gross income will have dropped by around 45% in 2009/10 (i can literally blame the credit crunch) ... or in other words, i spent a lot of 2009 being skint but still with the prospect of an impending tax bill based on the previous year's better earnings that has now impended with extreme prejudice* ... the good news is i should be able to clear the debt to the HMRC by this summer ... but if i didn't have a fairly major piece of work on at the moment, i'd be screwed ... the choice would be 'get a proper job' or benefits, or keep on freelancing with no immediate prospect of clearing the tax liability
i guess if you choose to be a musician, then you keep on playing which can get you into all sorts of tax bother, because when the HMRC start (reasonably) making noises about a payment plan, there is no way on earth you can predict your future income ... if the tax debt just builds and builds over several years, surely >something< happens though?
* yeah i know i should have put money aside in 2008 and kept my hands off it in 2009 but that's hard when you have a mortgage/council tax/bills to pay; and i'd add that the whole amount is not high - Gordon Brown could probably sort it out with less money than he pays his cleaner
"if the tax debt just builds , surely something happens?"
I'm guessing that's the point at which one declares bankruptcy or does a Mike Read and pawns the record collection.
Indeed...
if the IR feels you're taking the p*ss, it will commence bankrputcy proceedings through the County Court system then, to coin a phrase, your ass belongs to them (as well as any other equine stock you may own)
A roof over his head.
I suspect John didn't give a fig for riches.A roof over his head,a glass in one hand and a spliff in the other and never laying down without a hand to hold seemed to be more important to him and I may add to me also.
but with all due respect...
... you're a Norse trickster god with different standards from us mere mortals
Possibly the TaxMan didn't 'get' him because....
...they never understood a darned word he said anytime they phoned up, especially in his latter years.
Can you imagine the conversation?
Taxman: Hello, Mr McGeachy Trading As Mr Martyn? This is the VAT man: we see you've been appearing on the front cover of national music magazines. With a beard. Our system indicates that this must mean you're earning vast sums of money and hugely popular with discerning elements of the British public. We'd like to relieve you of a fair but ruthlessly precise proportion of that mound of cash. Or we'll have to send round dour men with briefcases...
Martyn: Gnnnnaaaarghhhwooooouuuuaaarrrgh! Blllllluuueeeeeuuuuurghh! Ledmeinzzzzzzzzzzzzzwwwwweeeeetttttdealllurghledmeinledmein....wooooooouuuuuuuuurrrrrghzzzzzzzzzzweeetzzzzzzertainzzzzzzzurprizzzzze......
bluuuuuuueeeeeeeerrrrrghhhhhhhhhh.....
Taxman: Hello? Hello???? Mr McGeachy? er, there seems to be some kind of interference on the line, er, as I was saying.....
Martyn: Gninnnnnnngblurrrrghzzzzingwrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuhhhhh...AYAAAAAAMJOHNWAYNE!!!!.....ivyurgedidinabarroomfyd-ah......
Taxman: Ah, er, sorry Mr Wayne, we've obviously been given an incorrect number. I'd, er, have a word with BT about the line if I were you. Er, cheerio then..... click... whirrrrrrrrrrr....
I think I have that track
on a rare bootleg.
Wasn't he declared bankrupt in the 90s?
I recall that there was a period in the 90s when he went bankrupt. I think it was around the time he released re-recorded versions of old songs. Might be wrong, but I think it shows that his finances weren't perhaps what they should have been. But thank god he was such a creative genius.
By the way, that Spencer the Rover clip posted earlier by Nick Duvet, is brilliant.
While we're at it
Have a gander at these:
Some People Are Crazy
In the last 15 years, I must have spent hundreds of pounds on the guy's music. The number of copies of Solid Air I've bought, upgraded, given out as gifts alone would surely add to someone's coffers.
I was amazed when I read the estate value. Maybe John sold his royalty rights to get out of bankruptcy, but it seems incredible that he made so little out of his incredible gift.
I heard he had an SD-1 Vitesse...
...called Spencer.
(hands Skirky his coat)