Trade Martin's extensive involvement in music has spanned multiple stylistic periods through his roles as producer, arranger, songwriter, and intermittent performer, rendering him difficult to classify within any single tradition. Partnering with Johnny Power during the late 1950s, he began capturing performances by acts including Johnny & the Jokers and issued their material via the Harvard Records imprint; the pair subsequently established Rome Records in 1960. The label folded by 1962, undermined by inconsistent distribution networks that blocked commercial traction even after securing the Earls—who later achieved their successes on Old Town Records—along with Del & the Escorts and the Glens. For these ensembles Martin supplied every instrumental backing himself, layering each part through successive overdubs. After Rome's closure in 1963 he dissolved the collaboration and issued recordings under his own name on Roulette and additional imprints until the close of the decade, later delivering the full-length Let Me Touch You on Buddah Records in 1972. Yet his most sustained accomplishments arose from production, arrangement, and songwriting duties executed across an array of styles, encompassing 1960s girl group pop/rock, folk, electric blues, 1970s funk, and 1980s dance-pop. Among the artists with whom he collaborated stand Eric Andersen, Ellie Greenwich, Lesley Gore, the Tokens, Ian and Sylvia, Rick Nelson, B.B. King, B.T. Express, Pam Russo, and Solomon Burke. Compositions of his have likewise been interpreted by Dusty Springfield ("Take Me for a Little While"), Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles, B.B. King ("Peace to the World"), and Dave Edmunds ("Don't You Double Cross Me"). In addition he composed and produced several film soundtracks, concentrated chiefly in the 1970s.
