Golden Hits By Tony Martin

 

Guilty

Golden Hits By Tony Martin

Mercury Records SR 60644

1961

From the back cover: Tony Martin and the modern recording industry "happened" coincidentally at the same time. When Martin got out of the Navy in 1946, audio engineers were already taking the technical advancements that had developed in radar and other sounding devices which made it possible to record for the first time the really full sound of the human voice and the full range of the instruments that make up the orchestra. Martin's high-range baritone was successful only because of the microphone on personal appearances and in recording studios now picked up the sensitive nuances and innuendoes which were part of the Martin bag of aural tricks. For Tony Martin is no novice at any time in his singing career to the peak in original interpretation.

Already when he was 12 year old in Oakland, California, Martin, a terrific athlete, had trouble trying to find time to squeeze in both his heavy muscle and musical programs. As a young teen-ager, Martin formed a band, in which he played the reeds, called the "Clarion Four," which played professional engagements in between his athletic seasons. At 14, he was played with the five Red Peppers, a jazz combo, and at 16, under his real name, Al Morris, he was playing and ding his first singing with Tom Gerun's band at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco. This same band also gave Woody Herman his first professional break. At 18, he made his first coast-to-coast radio show, while still going to St. Mary's College.

Then followed a period of up's-and-down's, culminating with his Navy stint and finally his Mercury recording pact at the war's end. Martin provided Mercury, then a new firm, with its first million seller – "To Each His Own." And the hit triggered bigger things for him and for the firm.

His Mercury recording successes prompted major bookings from coast to coast, with Darryl Zanuck inking him to a 20th Century Fox pact after hearing him personally enthrall a capacity house at the Trocadero, Hollywood.

To Each His Own

That Old Black Magic

Stardust

Tea For Two

As Time Goes By

Body And Soul

I'll See You In My Dreams

All The Things You Are

A Gal In Calico

Guilty

I Don't Know Why

Make Believe