Martin Page

Martin Page (born 23 September 1959) is a musician, singer, bass player, session musician, and noted pop songwriter.


Martin George Page was born at Southampton, Hampshire, England, September 23, 1959 to Alan Richard Page (an aviation engineer) and Ruth Pamela Page. Page spent a good portion of his childhood moving from military base to military base as a result of his father's career. During those times, he stated that he spent a lot of time listening to early Genesis, the Beatles, and Motown musicians. Prior to becoming a musician/songwriter, Page was an apprentice to the Southampton Saints, a professional association football (soccer) team. While he enjoyed playing within the Saints' apprentice program, Page spent a great deal of his time listening to live music and learning how to play his chief instrument, the bass guitar, and that ultimately began to affect his abilities as an association football player. After a good deal of thought and consideration, Page's love of music propelled him to leave his association football apprenticeship and become a professional bass player. Page toured with many British bands as a session musician before forming Q-Feel with his bandmate (and later friend, flatmate, and writing partner) Brian Fairweather. Q-Feel's success with their single "Dancing in Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop)" led to Page and Fairweather moving to Los Angeles, where they met Diane Poncher. Poncher worked for Bob Cavallo (who was part of Cavallo, Ruffalo and Fargnoli Management and was looking for new bands to manage), and she saw that Page and Fairweather had the potential to produce quality work, so she left his agency and became Page and Fairweather's manager.


Thanks to Poncher's connections and Page and Fairweather's talents, Page was able to work with some of his musical heroes, including Earth, Wind, and Fire, The Commodores, and Elton John's writing partner, Bernie Taupin. Page's partnership with Taupin yielded the hit "We Built This City" (Starship) and "These Dreams" (Heart). Page and Taupin worked together again on Taupin's Tribe album and Page's In the House of Stone and Light. album. Page was also the composer behind (Go West)'s big hits "King of Wishful Thinking" and "Faithful." In addition to the aforementioned hits, Page has also written songs with Robbie Robertson, for Tom Jones, for Josh Groban, and many others. Page also played keyboards for Ray Parker, Jr., on the Ghostbusters theme song.


In 1994, Page received recognition as a singer and musician in his own right with his album In the House of Stone and Light. The title track, which he wrote himself after spending some time in reflection on a visit to the Grand Canyon, was a hit in the same year, reaching #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and becoming a popular mainstream hit. After the success of In the House of Stone and Light, Page took some time for touring and reflection. He also lost his parents and his some dear friends in the time between his first and second albums. The loss of his parents hit Page especially hard, and he went through a time of grieving. Fortunately, though, he returned to the studio and in 2008, his second album, In the Temple of the Muse, was released via IroningBoard Records, an independent label that Page and Poncher started together in order to give Page greater control of his music. Among the songs on "In the Temple of the Muse" are Page's own recording of "Mi Morena" and "Blessed," which is a song that Page has described as a "commitment song." He has also stated that "Blessed" is not about any person specifically, although he has stated that when his mother was still alive and around his studio when he was writing the song, she would plead with him not to play it because it would make her cry.


Page currently resides in Southern California, and he has active MySpace and Facebook accounts in addition to his own website. Page is active and responds often to his fans through his assistant, Vanessa Leavitt. He has never married, and he shares his home with his three cats. He has finished the third album, tentatively titled, A Temper of Peace, and is now preparing for its release around Christmas 2011. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.