Celebrated Artist Manager Michael McMartin has died aged 79

Michael McMartin, the Canadian-born entrepreneur who settled in Australia, where he created the framework for a professional music management community and led the Hoodoo Gurus for four decades, died on Sunday (March 31) after a long illness. It was 79.

“Michael had been undergoing treatment for cancer for many years but, despite the best efforts of his medical team, he succumbed to his illness peacefully around noon on Easter Sunday, surrounded by his loving family,” the McMartin family said in a statement. . .

Born on Vancouver Island on March 12, 1945, McMartin completed his BA (Political Science) at Loyola College in Montreal. He moved to Australia in 1971 and, several years later, joined forces with producer Charles Fisher to form Trafalgar Records, the independent recording and publishing company.

In 1985 he created Melody Management. His first clients were the Hoodoo Gurus, who he signed to their first record deal in 1982 and began managing three years later in 1985. It was a relationship that saw the Gurus inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, in 2009, and would last until McMartin announced in February this year that he would be stepping down from that role due to ill health.

“I really can't find the words to express my feelings right now, but respect, love and gratitude would be for each other,” he wrote in a message distributed on February 22, announcing his decision to deliver the guru duties to Mick Mazzone of Strong Management. “Thanks to the Hoodoo Gurus I have lived a life that I could otherwise only dream of.”

McMartin was a founding member of the Music Managers' Forum in Australia, serving as president and then executive director of the International Music Managers' Forum (IMMF), the umbrella organization for managers from some 24 countries that has NGO status at WIPO. The United Nations agency deals with global copyright issues and was, for 19 years, a board member of Support Act, the music industry's philanthropic charity.

The much-loved artist manager received the APRA Ted Albert Award for Service to Australian Music in 2007, one of the Australian music community's highest honours, and in 2015 was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for “services to the arts spectacle, especially in music”.

He is the reigning recipient of the legacy award at the AAM Awards, presented last year in Sydney.

John Watson was on hand to bestow the special honor on McMartin, his mentor. “When someone passes it's easy to list what they did, but it's much harder to explain how they did it. In an era where too many men behaved badly, Michael proved that good guys don't have to finish last,” Watson writes in a statement to Advertising sign. “He was an incredibly kind mentor to hundreds of people, myself included, and his political advocacy for the industry as a whole – and managers in particular – has been an inspiration for decades. Without him there would be no AAM and the Support Act would be nowhere near the force it has become.”

Colin Hay, former frontman of Men At Work, remembers McMartin for his kindness. “After I got fired from MCA Records in 1991, I wasn't sure what to do next. I knew Michael McMartin a little. He said to me one day, “why don't you just make an acoustic album and I'll put it out.” This happened and the pair became friends. “Friends who could tell each other the truth. He told me one day that I was wallowing in pity and that I could be a much better person. He was right. He helped me whenever I asked, even when I didn't,” explains Hay. McMartin was “rare among men”, someone who “believed in making the industry we inhabit a better place for everyone, a place that promotes creative endeavour, rather than the all-too-often stumbling block that this music industry can be.” .

McMartin is survived by his wife, Saskia, and son, Hamish and his extended family, including Michael's two granddaughters, Kiara and Koby.

A private family funeral will be held in the coming days and, shortly after, an announcement of a public gathering to be held in Sydney to celebrate the late musician's life and legacy, with invited friends and music industry acquaintances.