To make it in Nashville—even as a background performer—you have to have something special. According to the legendary Merle Haggard, Grady Martin—born on this day (Jan. 17) in 1929—had it without question.
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Referring to the renowned session guitarist as “everybody’s hero,” Haggard said, “He understood some things about music that nobody else understood. When he’d put that down on your record, it was like a gift.”
This Iconic Session Musician Dubbed Grady Martin “Nashville’s Greatest Guitar Player”
Enjoying a nearly 50-year career, Thomas Grady Martin lent his guitar master skills to timeless country hits like Marty Robbins’ “El Paso,” Loretta Lynn’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” by Sammi Smith. He also worked with musicians like Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline, and Johnny Cash.
Growing up on a farm in Chapel Hill, Tennessee, Martin’s mother encouraged his musical passions. As a child, he began listening to the Grand Ole Opry on a homemade radio that his cousin built from a cigar box and some coils pilfered from an old car.
Hearing the harmonic wizardry of DeFord Bailey and the vocal prowess of Roy Acuff, “I decided right then and there that I didn’t want to milk any more cows,” Martin later told writer Rich Kienzle.
[RELATED: Behind the Song: Marty Robbins, “El Paso”]
At just 15, he began performing regularly on the Nashville radio station WLAC. Two years later, Martin made his Grand Ole Opry debut as part of the Arkansas Cotton Pickers. By 1950, he was becoming a highly sought-after session guitarist in Nashville, playing on the Red Foley songs “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy” and “Birmingham Bounce.”
Soon, Martin found his way to the renowned Nashville A-Team, where he contributed to Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman,” “Saginaw, Michigan” by Lefty Frizzell, Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry,” and “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson. After his studio career ended, he toured with Jerry Reed and Willie Nelson, the latter as lead guitarist, until his retirement in 1994.
Grady Martin died from a heart attack on Dec. 3, 2001, in Lewisburg, Tennessee. He was 72 years old. And according to fellow Nashville session legend Bob Moore, there hasn’t been one like him before and since. Moore even went as far as to hail him “Nashville’s greatest guitar player.”
Featured image courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame
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