Don Martin
vocals, guitar, keyboards
Don has been a messenger of spirit for as long as he can remember...from a little boy playing toy guitar and piano, to traveling to communities across the world (including England, Israel, Africa and the Caribbean) singing, teaching, and basically loving people. He has played with notable musicians such as Phil Keaggy, Phil Driscoll, Bruce Cockburn, and has performed in small house gatherings, to large festivals and several thousand-seat venues. He is also a songwriter, a poet and a mystic adventurer. Playing guitar is his first love, though...and he has been playing solo and in bands with Ian Boccio and Stan Holt for several years. Progressive rock is his wheelhouse, but he has performed bluegrass, gospel, folk, world music, and EDM/trance. His vision and passion - for all of his music - is to recreate the sound he heard as a child, and that stirs the human soul, helping to awake in his listeners a passion for love that begins within themselves for themselves, and reaches outward to love for the natural world, and the unseen realms of grace, bliss and joy.
(Read about Don's mystical experience as a small child that still impacts every aspect of his life here)
Who Are You...Who, Who Are You?
Sung to the tune of "Who Are You?" by, uhm, The Who
Where were you born?
Born and raised in Atlanta, GA! Go Dawgs!!
Who are The Dawgs...your favorite band?
...what????
Well, who is your favorite band?
The Spirit Messengers
OK...what band(s) or artists influenced you the most?
Wow...so many. Pink Floyd, Pink Floyd, Kansas, Yes, Pink Floyd, Dan Fogelberg, Bruce Cockburn, the Allman Brothers...did I say Pink Floyd?
What is your favorite food?
The kind you eat.
Favorite movie?
Jeremiah Johnson.
What else is fun to know about you?
I have two awesome kids, all grown up but not adults (!), a cat named Baxter, a venue called Bhakti Refuge, and...a sitar!! I love yard work (seriously), I love to camp, kayak, and build fires! I meditate and chant every day because it keeps me sane.
Why do you music?
Besides being fun, and allowing me to hang out with the best people I know...it seems to be my life's grand purpose. When I was a very young child...3ish?...I had a 'vision'. I saw a star, with long streaming banners waving out of it, in the top of a magnolia tree in my family's front yard. The star was singing...I heard a very distinct musical melody. That experience profoundly shaped me, and to this day, I can both hear that enchanting and haunting melody...and I am searching to hear it again today. Part of the power of that experience was that, even as a child, I felt a deep sense of love, for me, yes...but also just...Love. I have since come to understand that the Language of Love that everyone understands...is Music. Today, I believe that I don't really play music - rather, the Music plays me. I feel like a Consciousness of Love wants to play and sing through me - and does. This Love raises the Vibration and Energy of the people who hear the Music (including me), and moves them to a place of experiencing the Love that is singing to them, to us all. That is why I "music" - I don't really have a choice.
Plus...I really like to kick-ass rock'n'roll!!! And trance out. And move my body. So, uh...yeh.
Read more of Don's story here...
