JOE NAPSHA
Bluegrass musician Mac Martin had his roots in Pittsburgh, but his music was known around the world, according to other bluegrass musicians and fans who knew him.
“He was known all over the world. He played in a bar in East Liberty (Walsh’s Lounge) in the 1950s, and people would come from all around to hear him. When bluegrass musicians would come to Pittsburgh on a national tour, they would go to see him,” said Wendy Mackin, who is one-half of the John and Wendy Mackin Band. John Mackin is Martin’s nephew.
Martin, whose real name was William Colleran, died Sunday near Canonsburg, where he was living with his wife, Jean. He was 96.
Martin, a self-taught musician, started playing when he was a youngster. William Colleran’s parents were from Ireland, and he would play Irish music and go to Irish dances in Oakland, according to his nephew.
“He just loved the music,” Mackin said.
Before his music career took off, Martin served during World War II as a member of a naval construction battalion, better known as the Seabees. While he was serving in the Philippines, his mother sent him homemade cookies that she packed inside his guitar and sent it from Pittsburgh, Mackin said. His Seabees battalion was sent to the Japanese-held island of Okinawa, where a fierce battle ensued in 1945.
When he returned home from the war, Colleran took a job as an accountant with the A&P grocery store chain. But Mackin said his uncle had to create a stage name because A&P forbade its employees from working a second job. “Mac” was a familiar way of addressing guys, and “Martin” came from the Martin-brand guitar he played, Mackin said.
To Bruce Mountjoy, who hosts a radio music show on WYEP, Martin was a legend in bluegrass music circles, one of the early stars of the genre that started in the late 1940s.
“He was in the first generation of bluegrass music. If not, he was in 1A, right behind it,” Mountjoy said.
“If you lived in Pittsburgh and liked bluegrass (music), chances are that your introduction (to bluegrass) came from Mac and the Dixie Travelers.”
Friends will be received from 3:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday at Beinhauer, 2828 Washington Road, McMurray.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at Resurrection Parish, St. Thomas Moore Catholic Church, Fort Couch Road, Bethel Park. Interment at Calvary Catholic Cemetery.
Mac Martin
https://www.discogs.com/artist/2482958-Mac-Martin
