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Perry
Martin
Vocals & Guitar
Perry was born on the other side of the world in London,
England but moved to Queensland, Australia as a child. He
came from a family steeped in the entertainment field. His
mother was a dancer and his father was singer who travelled
England, Australia and the Far East and had also worked
with Perry's grandparents when he was younger as part of
a vaudeville style musical-comedy trio known as "The
Merry Martins". "It may sound cliche but music
is in my blood".
At a very young age Perry wound up playing in a country
showband, "The Donny James Show" and toured South
Vietnam during 1968 -69. "I was helping out my Dad
who was running a Booking Agency in Danang, Vietnam.
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He would bring in acts from all over the world to play for the
American and Australian troops." One of those acts was the
"Donny James Show". Perry became friends with the band
and went to their shows often to help move equipment and set up.
They'd heard Perry play guitar and were quite impressed with his
knowledge of chords and how quickly he could learn a song.
That particular incarnation of the band left Vietnam after a
couple of months but then Donny returned a month or so later,
with a drummer, pedal steel player, female vocalist but no bass
player. "I remember Donny asking me if I thought I could
play bass. Without even thinking about it I said I could. I auditoned
for him by playing along to several country songs I'd never heard
before, just by listening to the melody and watching the chord
changes. Donny was impressed and I was hired on the spot!"
The band toured the length and breadth of South Vietnam and soon
gained a reputation for being one of the few bands that would
play just about anywhere. "We went places no other bands
would go. Several times bases we were at came under attack while
we were playing and we had to take an extended break in one of
the bunkers until things cooled off!" The band were eventually
given there own weekly television show on the the Armed Forces
Radio and Television Network. The show was called, appropriately,
"Nashville Vietnam". "We would generally record
four or five shows at a time in the studios in Saigon and then
tour for a few weeks."
The female vocalist of the band was Leta Frizzell, daughter of
country legend Lefty Frizzell, who later toured with the band
himself for a couple of months as a guest star. They also had
guests on their TV show such as Hank Snow Jr. and Sheb Wooley
of "Rawhide" and Purple People Eater fame. "You
have to realize that, at the time, I came out of a musical environment
where I was listening to and playing Beatles, Rolling Stones,
etc. Other than Sheb Wooley, whom I recognized from "Rawhide,
I had no idea who any of these people were. I look back on it
in some
amazement - - I was actually working with a country legend for
a while there!"
Perry finally felt the need to return to Australia, which he
considered home at the time and so he left war-torn Vietnam for
the sunny beaches of his home town in Queensland. However, 18
months of experience working with pro musicians in a place like
Vietnam had left its mark on him; he felt nothing in common with
his old high school friends and it wasn't long before he felt
the urge to travel overseas and play more music. His father had
left Vietnam not too long after Perry and he, too, had the urge
to get back to the performing side of the entertainment world.
So, together with an old musician colleague of Perry's dad, they
formed a music/comedy trio and set off for the far east once more.
In those days Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony, which gave
British subjects automatic right of abode, so they used it as
their base to operate from while they toured U.S. Military Bases
in Okinawa, Japan, The Phillipines, Taiwan and Thailand, as well
as playing the night club and hotel circuits in Singapore and
Indonesia. After a year of this the trio disbanded and Perry and
his dad settled in Hong Kong. Perry's father retired from performing
and became a partner in an extremely successful pub. Perry, on
the other hand became involved in the music scene in Hong Kong.
At the time there was a fairly large English-language pop scene
in Hong Kong with many Chinese pop artists recording albums in
English. These albums mostly consisted of cover versions of already
popular American and English pop songs. After working with a number
of bands and then finally deciding to go solo, Perry started getting
noticed by the local press and receiving favorable reviews of
his performances. By the late 1970's he came to the attention
of House Records. a small record label looking for artists with
original material. "You might say they were ahead of their
time in that they were almost like one of today's indie labels.
I was given carte blanche to do whatever I wanted - - which was
both a blessing and a curse. I did score one hit from the album,
a song called "It's Over" which hit Number 4 on the
pop charts but too much of the music on the album was self-indulgent
and non-commercial." However, on the strength of the single
the album did well enough and was well-reviewed by the press.
Perry had at least made his mark on the music scene and was a
known and respected singer/songwriter.
In the period between his first and second album Perry formed
a music production company with another musician friend and they
turned it into one of the most successful commercial jingle companies
in Hong Kong. "There was a period there where I'd be watching
TV in the evening and hear at least one of the jingles we'd written
and produced in every commercial break!" They also wrote
songs for movies, wrote and produced songs for other local artists
and produced six albums for WEA (Warner-Elektra-Asylum) HK.
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