Attempting to hang a musical label on the career of Trade Martin is a bit like trying to wrap a large sack of gifts with one ribbon. In a career that spans four decades as a noted 1960s studio guitarist, producer, arranger, songwriter and recording artist, Martin has worked with girl groups, doo-wop acts and an assortment of projects in jazz, folk, disco-funk, hard rock, country and of course, the blues. Trade has been associated with many household names, and his respect within the industry has resulted in impressive offers from giants like RCA and ABC-Paramount to run their A&R divisions.
Discoveries by Martin include the Earls of doo-wop fame, the funk sensation B.T. Express and the Vagrants, whose guitarist Leslie West became an influential rock star with Mountain beginning in 1969. His songs have been recorded by name artists like the Vanilla Fudge, Dusty Springfield, Patti LaBelle, Cher and Dave Edmunds.

And in the blues world, who better to be linked with than B.B. King? Martin's legacy is sealed through his work on several projects with King during the late 1980s that resulted in tunes on his King of the Blues and Live At San Quentin albums, the latter of which garnered a Grammy Award, as well as the title sound track for the movie Stormy Monday. The profound impact of working with King later resulted years later in Martin¹s all-original B.B. King Tribute CD.

Born in Union City, New Jersey, Martin began playing a thirteen dollar Stella guitar his dad bought him at eight years of age. He was inspired by his uncle ("a Django Reinhardt nut") as well as with rock 'n' rollers like Chuck Berry and rockabilly players like Carl Perkins and Scotty Moore, who played the guitar licks on "Jailhouse Rock" and "Blue Suede Shoes" by Elvis Presley. The influence of "The King" upon the young Trade was profound, from the very first time he heard Elvis' distinctive voice on "Heartbreak Hotel" on DJ Alan Freed's show in the family car outside the local Sears and Roebuck.

In his early teens, Martin studied be-bop jazz guitar with Rector Bailey, mentor of jazz great Mickey Baker. Bailey had played on the records of Big Joe Turner, Ruth Brown and other legends of the day. "Rector not only played great guitar, but fine upright bass, vibes and piano," Martin says, "And the first guy I ever saw scat sing in unison with his guitar solos. He was a genius."

In 1960, Martin debuted as a solo artist with an instrumental guitar recording of "La Mer" on Gee Records. "The record was closing in on the Cashbox top 100 when Bobby Darin came out with 'Beyond The Sea'," Martin recalls. "It wiped out any chance of LaMer becoming a hit. A few years later, we did appearances together and Darin would always tell me he felt bad for burying my instrumental with his number 1 hit."

In 1961, with Johnny Power, he formed Rome Records, whose first release was "Life Is But A Dream," the debut hit by the Earls, whom Martin and Power discovered by chance singing a cappella in the hallway of Rome's distributor, Triodex, on Broadway in New York City. In late 1961, Trade also became a studio session guitarist for legends like Lieber and Stoller, Hugo & Luigi, Goffin & King, and Phil Spector, with whom he first worked at Liberty Records in early 1962. He is one of a trio of guitarists on the Isley Brothers' original "Twist and Shout" produced by Bert Burns during that same year.

In the mid 1960s, Martin produced a few singles and an album on Jubilee Records with Joey Dee and the Starlighters while, amidst New York's historic folk boom, he also did song arrangements and productions for some of folk's top artists like Joan Baez, Ian and Sylvia and Eric Anderson on Vanguard Records.

When the founder of Vanguard, Maynard Solomon, sought to expand the label from folk to pop / rock, Martin brought him a band from Long Island called the Vagrants. He produced and wrote the band's first two recorded sides, "I Can¹t Make A Friend" and "Young Blues." Through subsequent sessions at Atlantic, guitarist Leslie West would meet Felix Pappalardi, the record producer of Cream, whose guitarist Eric Clapton had impacted Leslie strongly. In 1969, West and Pappalardi formed Mountain, a heavy rock band whose stage repertoire included long jams on blues classics like T. Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday" and Robert Johnson's "Hellhound On My Trail". Mountain's third performance was at Woodstock 1969 and, like Cream, would influence countless rock and metal bands with a sound that was steeped in the blues.

Also at Atlantic during this period was the Vanilla Fudge, also from Long Island, which released its psychedelic cover of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hanging On" with Martin's "Take Me For A Little While" on the B side. These would prove to be its top two singles, making it an overnight sensation and a headliner over future rock legends like Led Zeppelin.

Martin achieved another career landmark in 1974, discovering and producing a Brooklyn band that would help define the disco-funk genre: B.T. Express. At the time, he was looking for a female vocalist for his song "I'm In Love With the Wrong Man" and Jeff Lane, who had sung in a doo-wop group that Martin had worked with years earlier, was managing a singer named Barbara Joyce. Martin met the singer and her group, the Brooklyn Trucking Express, in the basement of band members Louis and Bill Risbrook, and his song with her soon after, while renaming the group "B.T. Express'. Lane recorded the basic track and lead vocal of "Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)" at UltraSonic Sound on Long Island. The vocals were then enhanced by Martin at Groove Sound in New York, where he was working at the time, and he added a violin section and harp before finalizing the master tape at Bell Sound, where he had recorded with the Isley Brothers years earlier. Do It 'Til You're Satisfied would become the #1 R&B record of the year.

The fruitful association between Martin and B.B. King began in the late 1980s through Martin's financial manager, Sidney Seidenberg, who happened to be the manager for B.B. and others including the Temptations and Gladys Knight. The initial work King and Martin did together resulted in a pair of cuts custom-composed by Trade and his co-writers for King's 1988 King of the Blues album, "Business With My Baby Tonight" and the opener, "Change In Your Lovin' ", on which Martin played all the instruments except the horn parts, strings and King's guitar.

Later that year, King and Martin recorded the title track to the movie Stormy Monday which starred Tommy Lee Jones, Melanie Griffith and Sting among others. "Sting was in New York at the time," Martin recalls. "He came to the session at Media Sound on West 57th Street and said hello to B.B. when we were recording there."

The guitar Martin is holding in the picture was custom made for him by the legendary guitar maker, John D'Angelico. It is an instrument he treasures to this day, and it once led to some 'guitar talk' between Martin and the blues legend.

"I had told B.B. about my D'Angelico at a recording session," Trade recalls. "He said, 'yeah, they are great guitars, I'd like to try it.' Unfortunately, the following session was a big rush and I didn't have the chance to bring it along."

Martin did, however, get to play the most famous guitar in the world. "I tuned and played 'Lucille' at a session while B.B. was being interviewed by a few reporters,"Martin says. "Later in the session, he kept joking on the mike that 'Trade doesn't think I can tune my guitar.' He normally played it through a Fender Twin Reverb amplifier when we worked together. What a great combination that was.'

Martin's next involvement with King resulted in Live At San Quentin, released in 1990. He was not present at King¹s performance for the inmates and did not hear the recording until Seidenberg called him. "Sidney wanted me to listen to tapes that had been rejected by MCA Records, King's label," Martin says, "and when I did, I told him I was sure I could sweeten and enhance the sound to make a great album out of it."

Martin worked his magic, mixing and editing the tapes at studios in New Jersey and New York. Later, he and King recorded the only studio track on the album, Martin's "Peace To The World" with Trade adding the backing vocals of a Newark-based gospel choir through a friend of his, Broadway producer Chapman Roberts.

"By then," Martin recalls, "there were some new people at MCA and all of a sudden, everybody loved it. The album was released and sure enough, it won the Grammy for Best Traditional Blues album in 1990. You can't make stuff like that up"

The reviews were positive. One example: 'Live At San Quentin is, perhaps, one of King's all-time best album releases. From start to finish, he makes you laugh, cry, and boogie - the lesson being that the blues are not just weepy, depressing songs, but that they can be both happy and sad. It is uplifting to know that B.B. was bringing sunshine into the ordinary dreariness of prison life that his "captive audience" experienced daily. He did not need to remind them of their plight by delving into long, depressing sets and acting the part of a half-hearted rebel pretending to fully understand their situation.'

Martin echoes this and other public sentiments about King. "B.B. is a genuinely nice guy, classy and very humble," Martin says. "I don¹t think he really understands the extent of his impact and success. He's just too down to earth. But I love his singing voice and he can say more with one note on his guitar than most guys can with fifty."

In 1992, an arrangement was made with MCA for Martin to oversee another King session in Japan, this one a collaboration with icon Ray Charles. "It was almost set but they just couldn¹t come to terms," Martin recalls, "and unfortunately, the deal never came off."

The appreciation of working with B.B. King stayed with Martin over the years, and inspired his B.B. King Tribute CD in 2003 on Innovation Digital, a label he formed three years ago. The CD is a solid and diverse collection of original songs that were written for the legend and pay tribute to King in a variety of ways. Interestingly, Martin's vocal style on the CD hints at the influence upon him in his early years by yet the other 'King', Elvis Presley.

Three of the CD's tunes "Stranger In Your Eyes," "Heart of Clay" and "Don't Bite The Hand That Needs You" were originally co-written for King by Martin and Artie Kornfeld, a friend best known as a co-founder of the 1969 Woodstock Festival. King had recorded them with Martin, but they were never released. Other tunes were written by Martin and his long-time collaborator, Jeff Rubin, as well as with the CD's associate producers, Lou Inzeo and Chuck Mearizo, now the guitarist of Larry Chance and the Earls. Vocals were added by the same Chapman Roberts Gospel Singers who had sung on "Peace To The World," as well as by Dakota Rae Austin, whom Martin later signed as a solo artist. The CD also spotlights great work by Bob Magnuson on tenor sax and Vinny Cutro on trumpet.

"I didn't play all that much guitar on it because didn't want it to appear that I was emulating B.B.,"Martin explains. "There would be no point in trying."

Early in 2004, Martin released a all-original CD called Country Meets The Blues which includes a tune called "The King and His Guitar," an Elvis dedication whose lyrics mention the titles of each movie Presley starred in. In the fall, Trade's Innovation Digital released the debut CD of Dakota Rae Austin, a country artist from Verona, New Jersey, entitled Patsy Cline Tribute.

In March of 2005, Innovation Digital signed an exclusive arrangement with online music label INgrooves for worldwide digital distribution. Jason Kadlec, INgrooves A&R Director, remarked, "We are pleased that Innovation's exceptional music product will be distributed through our company into digital storefronts for fans to purchase."

Martin is currently working on a piano-based jazz CD, scheduled for release in November of this year. Most of the music tracks have been completed, some with a jazz trio (piano / bass / drums) and others sung by Martin with accompaniment by the unique jazz piano stylings of Bob Himmelberger. The CD will feature renditions of hardcore jazz songs like "Stella By Starlight," "Lush Life" and ³Sophisticated Lady." Martin is also beginning work on a followup CD with Dakota Rae Austin, and is planning a blues collaboration in the near future with his long time friend and one of New York's top blues / R&B artists, Sam "Bluzman" Taylor.

To contact Trade Martin via email, learn more about his eclectic career or hear samples of his music, visit the Trade Martin website at
trademartin.com