Moon Martin Songbook

I've been a Moon Martin fan ever since hearing "Rolene" on the radio forty years ago. John "Moon" Martin was a member of the country-rock band Southwind from 1969 through 1973. Plans for a 1974 solo LP with Jack Nitzche fell through. Moon worked as a session guitarist until producer Craig Leon put him in the studio with Moon's fellow Okie Phil Seymour on drums and Gary Valentine of Blondie on bass. Capitol Records issued Moon's first solo album, Shots From A Cold Nightmare, in 1978.

Meanwhile, Moon's songs were recorded by a variety of artists, notably Mink de Ville's version of "Cadillac Walk" and Robert Palmer's hit version of "Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)".

Jack Nitzsche produced Mink DeVille's 1977 debut, and Nitzsche also brought Moon's songs to the attention of Michelle Phillips, who recorded three of them for her 1977 solo album, Victim Of Romance. Craig Leon produced Lisa Burns' 1978 self-titled LP, which included three Moon tunes.  Frankie Miller has recorded three of Moon's songs, and Alvin Stardust's 1983 comeback album includes both "Victim Of Romance" and "Dreamer".

Moon put together a band that included 18 year old Jude Cole on lead guitar, and they made a second album, Escape From Domination (1979). It was quickly followed by 1980's Street Fever and 1981's Mystery Ticket. Here is an interesting Moon Martin interview about Robert Palmer producing that record.

Moon's last solo album for Capitol, 1985's Mixed Emotions, was not released in the US. He made four more albums in the 1990's. As far as I can tell, he is now retired. Fun fact: John David Martin was born on Halloween in 1950.

I often thought that Moon Martin was miscast by Capitol as an "angry young man" of the New Wave (just as Joe Jackson and John Hiatt were initially marketed to mimic Elvis Costello's image). I'm not denying that Moon wrote a number of songs from the perspective of a creepy, vengeful loner. But he was primarily influenced by Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Del Shannon, and the Beatles. Then again, so were Dwight Twilley, Tom Petty, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, and others in the early years of New Wave and power pop.

Here's a set of Moon Martin compositions that were recorded by other artists. Two of them ("The Aching Kind" by Michelle Phillips and "My Eye On You" by Bette Midler) were not recorded by Moon himself; the latter was cowritten by Bill House, Moon's producer on Mixed Emotions. "X-Ray Vision" was also a cowrite. 

"Bootleg Woman" was written by Moon's Southwind bandmate Fontaine Brown, and was covered by Moon on Escape From Domination. (Fontaine Brown has had a long and fascinating musical career.)

"Bad Case", "Cadillac Walk", "Dreamer", "Victim Of Love" and "Bad News" have been covered most frequently. He was evidently very popular in Europe: these and other Moon Martin songs have been translated into French, Swedish and Finnish.

Thanks to AussieRock at Rock On Vinyl for sharing the Darryl Cotton single, and to Down Underground for the Michelle Phillips and Lisa Burns albums.