Ray Martin (orchestra leader)
Ray Martin ( born October 11, 1918 in Vienna, † February 7, 1988 in Johannesburg, South Africa; Complete name Raymond Stuart Martin) was a British arranger and orchestra leader.
Biography
Martin grew up in Austria and studied violin and composition at the Vienna Music Academy. In 1937 he went to England, where he performed as a violinist in a vaudeville show. Later, he joined the British Army and was assigned because of his language skills of the Enlightenment. Due to his musical education but he was a composer and arranger for the Royal Air Force Central Band. After the war he worked for the British military radio in Hamburg, where he put together his own orchestra for the show Melody from the Sky from the Hamburg Philharmonic. The show was over 500 times in the BBC program.
From 1949 he also made recordings with his own orchestra and singers such as Julie Andrews and Lee Lawrence. With his photographs of Blue Tango and Swedish Rhapsody, as well as with the Elvis hit Crying in the Chapel with singer Lawrence he had top 10 hits in the British charts. Five albums released with the Piccadilly strings. As a composer he is registered for more than 1,200 titles and from 1954 he also wrote the music for several films.
In 1957 he went to the USA, where he recorded for RCA Records, a number of albums, including his most famous and most successful Dynamica. As an arranger, he was responsible for the Living Brass series of albums in Tijuana sound like him Herb Alpert had made popular.
In 1972 he returned to Britain and finally eight years later he moved to South Africa, where in 1988 he died of cancer at the age of 69 years.