Brian - Comedy and Music From A Wild and Crazy....well, you know...

I wanna rescue an old link from expiring, and augment it with newer material. This is an almost complete summary of the man in question. First up is the link I have that contains his first three comedy albums. Many of you have downloaded these before, but it can always use a few more....

The first new link here is for his fourth album, "The S. Martin Brothers". I've always wondered what his fans at the time must've thought of this: divided in half between some leftover standup sets and a side of bluegrass banjo tunes, it must've been polarizing. In his book "Born Standing Up", Steve talks about how he became really jaded with comedy, especially as he was playing to Led Zeppelin-capacity crowds by the end of the 70's. It's hard to evolve your comedy when 10,000 people just want to hear you scream SNL catchphrases. So, after this he was done.

Many years later, in a post-O Brother Where Art Thou? musical climate, he decided to release some more music. I bought "The Crow: New Music For The 5 String Banjo" right when it came out. I'm not much of a bluegrass fan, but if I'm gonna have some of the genre, it might as well be from him! A great album; I particularly like the Martin-sung "Late For School". Went on to win a Grammy. Here's a great PBS performance of the title track - 

A year later, he released the album "Rare Bird Alert" with the group Steep Canyon Rangers. It's an equally accomplished effort. Steve sings the hilarious "Atheists Don't Have No Songs", as well as doing a bluegrass version of his song "King Tut". Both albums are in one file. (The Crow is m4a, by the way).