Hugh Martin

Hugh Martin (August 11, 1914 – March 11, 2011) was an American composer, lyricist, arranger, vocal coach, playwright, and Broadway performer born in Birmingham, Alabama. The son of Ellie Gordon (Robinson) and Hugh Martin, an architect, he studied music at Birmingham-Southern College, where he was a member of the Beta Beta chapter of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. Over the course of a career spanning more than five decades, Martin contributed to Broadway as a performer, arranger, and composer, and earned an enduring place in American popular culture through his songs for the 1944 MGM film Meet Me in St. Louis.

Martin's Broadway presence began in 1937 when he appeared as a performer in Hooray for What!, the same production for which he also served as an arranger. He subsequently appeared on stage in Where Do We Go From Here (1938) and Louisiana Purchase (1940–41). Alongside his performing work, he built a parallel career as a vocal and choral arranger, contributing in that capacity to The Boys from Syracuse (1938–39), Too Many Girls (1939–40), DuBarry Was a Lady (1939–40), Cabin in the Sky (1940–41), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949–51), Top Banana (1951–52), Lorelei (1974), and Sugar Babies (1979–82).

As a composer, Martin wrote music and, in many cases, lyrics for five Broadway musicals. Best Foot Forward opened in 1941, followed by Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! (1948), Make a Wish (1951), and High Spirits (1964), the last of which he created with collaborator Timothy Gray. His final Broadway score was a stage adaptation of Meet Me in St. Louis (1989), which featured an expanded version of the film's songs developed with his longtime songwriting partner Ralph Blane. Martin also composed the songs for the West End musical Love from Judy (1952). The film version of Best Foot Forward (1943), starring Lucille Ball, brought his stage work to cinema audiences, and his other film credits included songs for Athena (1954), featuring Jane Powell, Debbie Reynolds, and Vic Damone, and The Girl Most Likely (1957), also starring Jane Powell.

Martin's most celebrated work remained the score he composed for the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis, in which Judy Garland performed three of his songs: "The Boy Next Door," "The Trolley Song," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." The last of these became a widely recognized Christmas standard across the United States and the English-speaking world. Martin and Blane received two Academy Award nominations for Best Song — for "The Trolley Song" in 1944 and for "Pass That Peace Pipe," co-written with Roger Edens, from Good News in 1947. Martin's relationship with Garland extended beyond the film; he became a close friend and served as her accompanist at numerous concert performances during the 1950s, including her appearances at the Palace Theater.

Martin received four Tony Award nominations during his career. High Spirits earned him three nominations — for Best Musical, Best Book Author of a Musical, and Best Composer and Lyricist — while the 1989 stage production of Meet Me in St. Louis brought a nomination for Best Original Score in 1990. In 1956, Martin and Blane recorded an album together titled Martin and Blane Sing Martin and Blane with the Ralph Burns Orchestra. Martin later collaborated with vocalist Michael Feinstein on the 1995 release Michael Feinstein Sings The Hugh Martin Songbook, on which Martin, then eighty years old, accompanied Feinstein on piano and sang a duet. In 2006, he released Hugh Sings Martin on PS Classics in conjunction with the Library of Congress, drawing on his catalog as composer, lyricist, arranger, and singer.

In his autobiography, Martin claimed that he wrote both the music and lyrics to all of the songs in Meet Me in St. Louis and that the body of work credited jointly to Martin and Blane — with the exception of "Buckle Down, Winsocki" from Best Foot Forward — was composed entirely by him alone. He attributed his decision to share credit to what he described as his own lack of business acumen. The autobiography, titled Hugh Martin: The Boy Next Door, was published in October 2010.

A convert to Seventh-day Adventism, Martin spent much of the 1980s as an accompanist for gospel vocalist Del Delker on her revival tours. In 2001, with assistance from Garland biographer John Fricke, he rewrote "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" as a religious number titled "Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas," which Delker recorded that year with Martin, then eighty-six, playing piano. Martin was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983 and was a member of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. He died on March 11, 2011, in Encinitas, California, at the age of ninety-six.