Hugh Martin (August 11, 1914 – March 11, 2011) was an American musical theater and film composer, arranger, vocal coach, and playwright. He is best known for his score for the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me In St. Louis, in which Judy Garland sang three Martin songs, "The Boy Next Door," "The Trolley Song," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." The last of these has become a Christmas season standard in the United States and around the English-speaking world. Martin became a close friend of Garland and was her accompanist at many of her concert performances in the 1950s, including her appearances at the Palace Theater.

Life and career[link]

Martin was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914. He attended Birmingham-Southern College where he studied music.^[1]

He was a member of the Beta Beta Chapter of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity^{[citation needed]}

Martin wrote the music, and in some cases the lyrics, for five Broadway musicals: Best Foot Forward (1941); Look Ma, I'm Dancin'! (1948); Make a Wish (1951); High Spirits (1964) (music and lyrics, with Timothy Gray); and Meet Me In St. Louis (1989), a stage version of the film with an expanded score by Martin and Ralph Blane.

Martin's first Broadway credit was as an arranger for the 1937-1938 musical Hooray for What! and was a vocal or choral arranger for such later Broadway musicals as The Boys From Syracuse (1938–39), Too Many Girls (1939–40), DuBarry Was a Lady (1939–40), Cabin in the Sky (1940–41), and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949–51), Top Banana (1951–52), and Lorelei (1974). He was a vocal arranger for Sugar Babies (1979–82).

As a performer, Martin appeared on Broadway in Hooray for What!, Where Do We Go From Here (1938), and Louisiana Purchase (1940–41).

Ralph Blane was Martin's songwriting partner for most of his work, and the two recorded an album of their best songs entitled Martin and Blane Sing Martin and Blane with the Ralph Burns Orchestra in 1956 (now available on CD). Martin and Blane were twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song, for "The Trolley Song" in 1944, and for "Pass the Peace Pipe" (also co-written by Roger Edens) from Good News in 1947. Hugh Martin also received four Tony award nominations, three for High Spirits (Best Musical, Best Book Author of a Musical, Best Composer and Lyricist) and one for the 1990 Meet Me in St. Louis (Best Original Score).

Martin's other film work included songs for the films Athena (1954) starring Jane Powell, Debbie Reynolds, and Vic Damone, and The Girl Most Likely (1957) starring Jane Powell as well as the film version of his Broadway hit Best Foot Forward which starred Lucille Ball.

Martin collaborated with vocalist Michael Feinstein for a 1995 CD Michael Feinstein Sings The Hugh Martin Songbook, an album on which the then 80-year-old songwriter accompanied Feinstein on piano and sang a duet. On an earlier CD Feinstein recorded the memorable Martin composition, "On Such a Night as This". He also released an album of his music called Hugh Sings Martin on the record label PS Classics, which drew from his catalog as a composer, lyricist, arranger and singer. The album was released in conjunction with the Library of Congress.

Martin, a Seventh-day Adventist, spent much of the 1980s as an accompanist for gospel female vocalist Del Delker on her revival tours and in 2001 rewrote his most famous song (with the assistance of Garland biographer John Fricke) as a more specifically religious number, "Have Yourself A Blessed Little Christmas", which was recorded that year by Delker with the 86-year-old songwriter playing piano on the recording.

Other[link]

Martin was the subject of a songbook collection, The Songs of Hugh Martin published by Hal Leonard Publishing in 2008. He published his autobiography Hugh Martin - The Boy Next Door in October 2010 at age 96. Martin was a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Alabama Music Hall of Fame and lived in Encinitas, California.

Death[link]

Martin died on March 11, 2011 in California, aged 96.

References[link]

• Wendi Rogers (December 14, 2005). "Culture: 'Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas,' Composer Hugh Martin and Singer Del Delker Recollect". Adventist News Network. http://news.adventist.org/2005/12/culture-have-yourself-a-blesse-little-christmas-composer-hugh-marti-a-siger-el-elker-recollect.html. Retrieved 2011-03-21. 

External links[link]

• Corliss, Richard. 'A Merry Little Christmas': Songwriter Hugh Martin Dies at 96. Time (Arts), March 12, 2011. Accessed 03-21-2011
• Hugh Martin at the Internet Broadway Database
• Hugh Martin at the Internet Movie Database
• Hugh Martin at the Internet Off-Broadway Database

Del Delker is an American contralto sacred music female vocalist who has sung on the Voice of Prophecy radio ministry since 1947.

Delker has recorded over forty albums for Chapel Records since the early 1950s. Among the songs she is best known for are "The Love of God", "Ten Thousand Angels", and "The Night Watch". In addition to her scores of recordings in English, she has also recorded several gospel albums in Spanish and Portuguese, as well as religious music for children.

Delker has toured the world with Voice of Prophecy revivals and performed in many nations, often singing Christian hymns in the native languages.

She is a good friend of composer Hugh Martin who at one point worked as her piano accompanist and later penned a new version of his Christmas classic Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas entitled "Have Yourself A Blessed Little Christmas" which Delker recorded in 1999. In 2002, she released her autobiography "Del Delker: Her Story" cowritten by Ken Wade and published by Pacific Press.

Selected discography[link]

Links[link]

• Biography
• Del Delker in Her Own Words
• Del Delker Music
• Voice of Prophecy website including broadcasts
• "I Know He Watches Me" by Stephen Chavez. Adventist Review

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Not to be confused with the Editor-in-Chief of Variety Timothy M. Gray, or American football player Tim Gray.

Timothy Gray (September 5, 1926 — March 17, 2007) was an American songwriter, author, singer and director, remembered for his partnership with Hugh Martin which produced High Spirits, a musical based on Noël Coward's play, Blithe Spirit.

Biography[link]

Gray, whose birth name was John Baker Gray, was born in Chicago and became a performer in vaudeville at the age of 16. He later performed on Broadway in musicals, including As the Girls Go, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and then television, before becoming a writer and composer.

He composed the songs for the Broadway musical Make a Wish. He also wrote the score of the London show Love From Judy and collaborated on High Spirits with Hugh Martin. Songs that he composed included "Forever and a Day", "Go and Get Your Old Banjo", "Was She Prettier Than I?", "Home Sweet Heaven", "You'd Better Love Me" and "If I Gave You".

For his work on High Spirits, he was nominated for Tony Awards for Best Author (Musical), Best Composer and Lyricist, and Best Musical. His other Broadway credits were Good News (1971) as vocal arranger, and the 1974 revival of Johnny Johnson, as producer.

Death[link]

Gray died in Sarasota, Florida, aged 80, in 2007.

References[link]

• Timothy Gray - IMDb profile
• Playbill.com obituary, March 26, 2007

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