Artists as diverse as Van Morrison, Thin Lizzy and the Marshall Tucker Band were touched by Mary Martin’s expertise.
By Nick Krewen
Special to the Star
If the only thing Toronto’s Mary Martin had achieved during her extraordinary career was introducing Bob Dylan to the Hawks, it would have been enough to enshrine her place in music history.
But Martin, who died July 4 in Nashville at the age of 85, accomplished so much more as an artist manager and record company executive for the better part of six decades: she made a transformational impact in the lives of the singers, songwriters, producers — and even songs — that came into her orbit.
Martin’s recipe for success?
As an influential woman in a male-dominated music industry — especially in the 1960s and 1970s — she had an uncanny knack for matchmaking.
“She was a pioneer,” said Rodney Crowell, whom Martin managed between 1980 and 1983, in a recent interview with the Star.
“Her thing was putting people together — having a vision that the creative outcome would be really well worth the time spent.”
It worked more often than not.
When Montreal poet and novelist Leonard Cohen decided to try songwriting, Martin became his first manager and introduced him to Judy Collins, who recorded his “Suzanne” and “Dress Rehearsal Rag” for her 1966 album In My Life, while publicly heralding his talent.
Martin also helped Cohen overcome severe stage fright and recorded a demo of him singing in the bathtub of her New York apartment, using that tape to convince Columbia Records to sign him.
Later, she was introduced to Van Morrison by the Band’s Richard Manuel and helped extricate the notoriously temperamental artist from an onerous contract with Bang Records and renegotiated his arrangement with Warner Bros. Records in time for his breakthrough 1970 Moondance album.
As an A&R (artist and repertoire) executive in both Los Angeles and Nashville — one who scouts and oversees talent — she got deals for Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Leon Redbone, Nicolette Larson, the Marshall Tucker Band, Thin Lizzy, Clint Black and Lorrie Morgan, many for the first time.
But the pinnacle of her illustrious career remains Martin’s role in hooking up folk icon Dylan with Toronto rockers the Hawks — Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel, later known as the Band — when he made the transition from acoustic music to electric.
Martin’s connection with the Hawks — Ronnie Hawkins’ former backing band — dated back to the Yonge Street music scene of the early ‘60s. A Havergal College alumnus and the daughter of a corporate lawyer, Mary Martin had attempted a couple of post-secondary stints in B.C. and at Ryerson but found nothing as fulfilling as music. Working at an insurance firm from nine to five afforded her the time and means to pursue her passion for seeing it in a live setting.
Martin began befriending groups like Levon and the Hawks (which they called themselves after splitting from Hawkins).
“My friend and I used to spend a fair wad of time at Le Coq d’Or and other places, and we would go to the (Saturday) matinee and we would hang out with them,” Martin told journalist Jay Orr during a 2009 interview at the Country Music Hall of Fame.
“We were groupies — it’s the truth … I would swoon when Richard (Manuel) would sing a Ray Charles song. I think we all did.”
Martin’s desire to join the music industry prompted her to board a bus to Greenwich Village in 1962 with $60 in her pocket — and she eventually finagled her way into a receptionist’s job with high-powered manager Albert Grossman.
“Working for Albert Grossman in those days, it didn’t matter how menial the task was, it was that we were surrounded and enveloped by all of these great artists, including (Bob) Dylan; Odetta; Peter, Paul and Mary; later the (Paul) Butterfield Blues Band; Janis Joplin; Ian and Sylvia; and Gordon Lightfoot,” she told Orr.
Martin was in the office in 1965 when an agonized Dylan, fresh off hearing the Byrds’ hit electric version of his “Mr. Tambourine Man,” decided he needed to expand his sound.
“Never being shy about very much, I sort of suggested to him that maybe it would be a good idea to check out these boys in the bars of Toronto,” Martin told Orr.
The Hawks had sent Martin a tape that she played for Dylan, and eventually he made his way down to the Friar’s Tavern to rehearse after hours with the group for two nights in September 1965. They became his backing band for his first electric tour.
After working her way up to executive assistant, Martin left Grossman in 1966 to start her own management firm with Leonard Cohen, the Stormy Clovers and the Dirty Shames as her first clients.
As she moved forward over the years, eventually landing A&R positions at Warner Bros. Records in California and RCA Records in Nashville, Martin built a sterling reputation as an acid-tongued, straight-shooting tastemaker.
“She was a force of nature,” said Larry LeBlanc, senior editor of the music-industry website CelebrityAccess.
Calling her “one of the most important managers to ever come out of Canada,” LeBlanc said her worldwide impact was “beyond comparison,” noting that she had received a Grammy for producing the star-studded 1999 Hank Williams tribute album Timeless.
“She had impeccable taste in music and impeccable ears,” he said. “I don’t think anybody had as good A&R ears as Mary Martin. Period.”
She was also very nurturing, as Rodney Crowell discovered when he attempted to establish himself as a songwriter and producer.
“I guess she saw something in me,” he said, “but she also saw what kind of country rube I was at the time, and she started taking me to good restaurants and introducing me into the finer things in life.
“I was really grateful for her guidance. She looked after me for a couple of years in a really kind-hearted way as I was trying to find my way.”
Crowell said that Martin, who also managed Vince Gill for a time, could also be “Mama Bear” protective of her artists.
“She was tough,” he said. “Specifically, there was a particular producer I wanted to make a record with, who was obviously in the upper echelon of record-making, and he had sized me up as not ready for his level.
“To spare me the indignity and the shame, Mary started a war of words with him, and he was forced to say, ‘I can’t make a record with you because I can’t work with your manager.’
“Mary did that on purpose: she was protecting my young ass at the time, because she knew and I knew how volatile confidence is to a new up-and-coming artist who was trying to find their way. I always appreciated that.”
She also gifted artists with hits: she brought the Kenny Loggins tune “Danny’s Song” to a friend, Halifax-born producer Brian Ahern, in 1972, and it became a smash for Anne Murray. Martin also placed the memorable ballad “I Can’t Make You Love Me” with Bonnie Raitt in 1991, and Crowell believes she may have been responsible for landing his song “Shame on the Moon” with Bob Seger for “one of the biggest hits of songs that I’d written.”
“It’s amazing how many parts of the industry she touched in different ways,” said Mike Daley, a Toronto musicologist and musician who has researched Martin’s life.
Daley noted that she also helped people outside the music industry.
At age 53, she was sexually assaulted by an intruder who broke into her home. “She did a lot of work for victims of sexual assault later in her life after suffering that herself,” he said.
As brave, funny, and outspoken as she was kind, Mary Martin was beloved by the music industry.
Alan Kates, the Toronto-based former manager of country acts Prairie Oyster and Charlie Major, struck a deep friendship with her when she was Prairie Oyster’s A&R representative at RCA Records.
“I will miss her laugh, her spirit, her kindness,” Kates said. “I will just miss who she was — one of the most special folks I ever met. I would fly to heaven to bring Mary back if I could.”