Chicago native Van Gordon Martin is a dedicated guitarist with a love of reggae, dub, and soul music, who started his career at the age of seven. His first job was polishing and stringing guitars in a local music shop, which he followed up by playing them, mentored by Bernie Worrell, the legendary keyboardist of Parliament Funkadelic and Talking Heads fame. Van felt the need to spread his wings, and moved to Boston, where his career in music took off.
A veteran of the US east coast music scene for over a decade, Van Gordon Martin is a member of Boston’s reggae collective Dub Apocalypse, Club Def’l (a Moroccan/jazz/electronic group), and hip hop artist Big Daddy Kane’s live band – among many others. Van also co-founded Spiritual Rez, a project with which he toured extensively until 2011. Musically he takes his inspiration from reggae and soul music, while being inspired by positive vibes and live performance. In his words,
“my musical goal is to share my story, and love for guitar with the world.”
Van Gordon Martin’s song, ‘Let It Grow’, the title track of his latest album, released this month, and its video, revolve around bringing back life to a city. The animated clip allows VGMs imagination to tell the story both visually and lyrically; his animated self spreads love and life throughout the city, watering the growing greenery with a walking watering can, trailing along behind him. The plants grow, spreading their roots and branches, with some transforming into instruments.
You can find out more about Van Gordon Martin online on his official website, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and SoundCloud accounts.
