Raymond Stuart Martin (born Kurt Kohn; 11 October 1918 – 7 February 1988) was an Austrian-British orchestra leader. He was noted for his

light music Light music is a less-serious form of Western classical music, which originated in the 18th and 19th centuries and continues today. Its heyday was in the mid‑20th century. The style is through-composed, usually shorter orchestral pieces and ...

compositions.

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

Bradley Torreano stated, "Ray Martin created a legacy for himself in British popular music through his work with his orchestra during the 1950s. His regular appearances on radio and television kept him in the public spotlight, while his position at

EMI Records EMI Records (formerly EMI Records Ltd.) is a British multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was originally founded as a British flagship label by the music company EMI in 1972, and launched in January 1973 as the succes ...

made him an influential producer at the label. His use of pseudonyms has blurred the path of his career through the years, making his many contributions even harder to keep track of. But his original compositions are what really made him popular; tracks like "Marching Strings" have become stables 'sic''of many public and city bands and orchestras since their release".

Career

Raymond Stuart Martin was born as Kurt Kohn into a liberal Jewish family in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Austria. His first steps into music came training as a violinist. He studied at the Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna. In 1938, he immigrated to England and was a

Carroll Levis Carroll Richard Levis (March 15, 1910 – October 17, 1968) was a Canadian talent scout, impresario and radio and television broadcaster, mainly working in Britain. Biography Born in Toronto and brought up in Vancouver, the son of a murdered po ...

discovery. Around this time, Ray was viewed by the British government as possible German spy during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, so he was arrested and placed on the ship HMT Dunera that took him and many others to Australia where he was interned at Hay, Tatura and Loveday prisoner of war camps. He returned to England in October 1941, joining the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

having been officially cleared. As he was multilingual, he served in the Intelligence Corps for six years. He became an arranger and composer for the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

Band. During this time, he also managed to rescue his brother who was imprisoned in a concentration camp or possibly a prisoner of war camp. After the war's end, he worked in radio for the

British Forces Network The British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) provides radio and television programmes for His Majesty's Armed Forces, and their dependents worldwide. Editorial control is independent of the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces themselv ...

in Hamburg, Germany, and later formed his own orchestra for a programme called ''Melody from the Sky'' which had over 500 broadcasts. Martin became the conductor of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

Northern Variety Orchestra, and also worked for

EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...

as a record producer and arranger. Whilst working as an executive and talent scout for EMI/Columbia in the early 1950s, he spotted Ruby Murray, and was the first to put her on record. During this period, he wrote many scores for TV and movies, including the score to the acclaimed

Diana Dors Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck; 23 October 19314 May 1984) was an English actress and singer. Dors came to public notice as a Bombshell (slang), blonde bombshell, much in the style of Americans Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and Mamie Van ...

film ''

Yield to the Night ''Yield to the Night'' (U.S. title: ''Blonde Sinner'') is a 1956 British crime drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Diana Dors, Yvonne Mitchell and Michael Craig. It was written by John Cresswell and Joan Henry based on Henry's ...

'' in 1956. He moved to the US in 1957, where he worked on both

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

and

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

productions. In 1959, he arranged two LPs of Classic US Television Themes named ''Impact'' and ''Double Impact'' on

RCA Victor RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records (its former longtime rival), Arista Records and Epic ...

for Buddy Morrow and his Orchestra, one of the first such collections on record. In that same year he contributed performances to half of the songs (with singer

Mimi Hines Mimi Hines (July 17, 1933 – October 21, 2024) was a Canadian actress, singer, and comedian, best known for her appearances on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'', ''The Tonight Show'' and her work on Broadway. She succeeded Barbra Streisand in the origi ...

) on the Christmas album ''The Merriest of Pops'' (RCA Victor), the other half being provided by Esquivel. Martin composed more than 2,000 works, many of which were recorded for

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

and

Polydor Polydor Limited, also known as Polydor Records, is a British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in ...

. He returned to the UK in 1972, but was comparatively unproductive. In 1980, he moved to South Africa, where he died after suffering from cancer, aged 69, in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

Selection of his light music titles

* "Melody from the Sky" * "Once upon a Wintertime" * "Blue Violins" * "Waltzing Bugle Boy" * "Airborne" * "Ballet of the Bells" * "Tango of the Bells" * "Marching Strings" (composition credited to Marshall Ross, a pseudonym) – was used as the

theme tune Theme music is a musical composition which is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at ...

for BBC school quiz show, '' Top of the Form'' * "Begorrah" * "The Sound of Sight"

Chart singles

*"Blue Tango (1952, Columbia) – UK No. 8 *"Swedish Rhapsody" (1953, Columbia) – UK No. 4 *"The Carousel Waltz" (1956, Columbia) – UK No. 24

References

External links

Robert Farnon Society: Ray Martin biography (by David Ades)
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Ray 1918 births 1988 deaths Musicians from Vienna Ivor Novello Award winners British male conductors (music) Austrian record producers British record producers RCA Victor artists Deaths from cancer in South Africa Austrian light music composers British light music composers Easy listening musicians 20th-century British conductors (music) 20th-century Austrian conductors (music) 20th-century Austrian composers 20th-century Austrian male musicians Austrian emigrants to England

Career

Selection of his light music titles

Chart singles

References

Further reading

External links