JEFFREY Martin plays Future Yard later this month, bringing the warmth of his country-folk sounds all the way from Oregon to Birkenhead.

A minister’s son who can build a house with his bare hands and holds a master’s degree in English, Jeffrey Martin took the road less travelled when it comes to his musical journey.

He worked his way through school as a carpenter, then, following graduation, spent four years teaching in high school. It was during that time that his career as a songwriter came into bloom.

Struggling to strike a balance between his increasingly rigorous Northwest/ West Coast touring and his efforts to get teenagers to love words as much as he did, Martin found himself in the tricky position of having to choose between his two passions.

Much to the delight of his fans, music won the day. Now, with three intensely lyric-driven albums under his belt - the first being 2014’s Dogs in the Daylight - Martin has developed a loyal and growing audience, both domestically and abroad.

Martin’s latest album, Thank God We Left the Garden, came out in November 2023.

Self-produced and recorded in a tiny shack on the back of Martin’s small corner lot in southeast Portland, the songs on Thank God We Left the Garden began as demos meant for a later visit to a proper studio, but became the quietly potent album itself.

Martin recalls: “There was a magic quality to the sounds I was getting in the shack with these two cheap microphones, some lucky recipe of time and place... I feel like I’ve only just learned how to sing. Like I’ve been chasing this record since my very first recordings.

“I wanted to really see what I could do, just my guitar and my voice and little else. I don’t think it was conscious. I think maybe it was a reaction to the pace of life these days. The churning news and entertainment and politics and violence of it all. I needed to know that even in this day and age, just a few simple ingredients still hold up.”

Jeffrey Martin plays Future Yard on Tuesday, January 23. Doors open at 7.15pm. Tickets, £16, are available from futureyard.org