| muzzybear |
Music Man Mourned
You might not know his name and his face probably won’t ring a bell either.
But if you've ever watched MuchMusic, any video shows or a program that journalistically investigates the music industry, you’ve seen John Martin’s handiwork.
The man who almost single-handedly created music television in Canada has died after a long battle with throat cancer. He was 58.
Martin created the pioneering TV show The New Music in 1979, a program that was among the first to look at rock stars as people and explore the changing world of the industry.
It starred icons like Jeanne Beker, later of Fashion Television, and J.D. Roberts, now a fixture at CNN.
But it was Martin who originated the idea. “I really wasn't just interested in the music. I was more interested in the people and the story,” he explained.
And whether he meant to or not, it was Martin who almost inadvertently inspired one of the world’s first new TV genres.
“Truly it was the whole forerunner of reality television,” Beker recalls. “He would make us have our camera rolling before the rock star even opened the hotel room door so we could capture the action as it unfolded.”
When MuchMusic, Canada’s only national music station, went on the air August 31st, it was Martin who was behind the magic and the mayhem, creating the live performance anything-goes style that has become its hallmark.
“We were a bunch of loonies," he laughed later. “My gig was to sort of mould the anarchy. It was a bunch of absolutely crazy people reinventing their lives every day. It was fun.”
Denise Donlon also hosted the NewMusic and later wound up running the music channel. But she’s more than willing to pay tribute to the man whose mantle she assumed.
“The idea of music on television was a unique concept and there were no rules,” she remembers. “And if there were, John would have broken them anyway!”
With creativity often goes a stubborn streak and Martin was no different. His mercurial temperament and guerilla management style began to clash with others in the industry, and he finally left the entity he created in 1993, unrewarded by his peers for his vision or his foresight.
But he hasn’t been forgotten by those who openly credit their success to him.
“We owe him a great, great debt,” concedes Jim Cuddy, whose Blue Rodeo became a staple of Much’s playlist. “I acknowledge all the time that John had a big hand in creating what we now appreciate as a very full and blossoming Canadian culture.”
Beker agrees. “[He was] incredibly smart ... the most creative person I ever worked with in this medium.”
But Martin may have summed it up best himself in an interview before his illness. “The whole experience,” he marvelled. "What a gas!”
Martin leaves behind his 18-year-old son David, his sister Madelaine Caldwell of North Wales and a legion of fans who didn’t know him, but are forever grateful for the vision he brought to a new form of television.
http://www.pulse24.com/Showbiz/Top_...23-002/page.asp
I had the honour and privilege of working with John when he was the Program Director at BPM:TV (He gave me my first TV show and he called it "Caroline" - after a pirate radio station in the UK).
How sad and strange that it will be tomorrow that Cinar, my intern (and friend) at BPM will have been gone a year tomorrow. And our boss just a year later.
John was most proud of his "cross-canada train" on Much Music. Do any of you remember that? He had artists and musicians from all across Canada jump on this train to play, and they did features on the cities. What a way to unite a country.
He will be sadly missed. |
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