1859 March | April 2016

BUZZ MARTIN
filmed at the Ryman Auditorium during
the Grand Ole Opry and Cash said, The
only difference between me and Buzz is
that he’s singing about lumberjacks and
I’m singing about cotton pickers.”
“That was the high point,” said Steve.
“That meant everything to him.” It seemed
a major record deal was within reach.
But the segment never aired. And while
there were flirtations with major labels
after that, a few meetings with big-time
agents, nothing came of them. Buzz’s early
1970s albums sold decently, but money
was always tight, and nobody seems quite
sure where the royalties went.
“My father came out of the woods
green as a gourd,” said Steve. “He was
an honest man, and he assumed that
everybody else was like him. But he
never complained.”
Trying to “compete with the big
boys,” as Steve put it, Buzz recorded
an album called Solid Gold in 1976.
From the opening of the album, when
a nerdy male voice announces, “Ladies
and gentleman, the only singing logger
in captivity!” to the finale of “America
the Beautiful,” the songs seem unnatural,
contrived. It’s the only time Buzz’s
chuckle seems forced. Solid Gold was
recorded as a faux live album, with an
applause track and Buzz bantering with
phantom audience members.
By the late 1970s, the failure of Solid
Gold was compounded by the demise of
traditional logging. Not only was logging
a dirty word in most of the country, but
many local loggers were out of work.
Buzz’s music no longer fit the times.
As Buzz’s career waned, he played
mostly spaghetti feeds and trade shows.
He made some money sponsoring
chainsaw companies and toured with
his family as his backing band, calling
them “The Chips Off the Old Block.”
In 1979, he sold his music rights and
left the recording business for good.
He went to Alaska with Biscuit to log
full time again, trucking, running heavy
machinery, and sometimes singing for
the crew. By most accounts, he was
happy again. In “Goin’ Home” (1969,
Ripcord), he’d foreshadowed his return
to the woods:
I miss the sight of the sun coming
up at the start of each new day
And the morning mist as it rolls
and twists and moves out down
the bay
While the coffee brews I’ll lace my
cork shoes and get ready for a day
in the woods
Where the work is hard
and I can sweat off some lard
And get back to feeling good
In 1983, Buzz was scouting locations
for a hunting expedition on Chichagof
Island, Alaska when he drowned in a
tidepool. Friends believe he tripped and
hit his head. He was 55.
Steve recently bought the rights
to his father’s catalog and is hoping
to record the songs he was writing in
Alaska. Choking back tears, he played
one—a sweet, catchy tune about a tree
planter called “Joanie.”
What Steve hopes is that people
will rediscover his father’s original
forty-four songs. There are four in the
Smithsonian, and you can hear “Sick
of Settin’ Chokers” in the bar scene of
Sometimes a Great Notion, but until recently
it’s been hard to find Buzz Martin
music outside of eBay.
Steve has made twenty tracks available
on cdbaby.com. Zach Bryson, a
distant relative, covers the music with
his Portland band and said a new generation
is discovering Buzz.
“After the set, people always come up
and ask me about him or tell me how
their parents or grandparents used to play
his records,” said Bryson. “I want to shine
a light on this music—it’s just so good.”
“While the coffee brews I’ll lace
my cork shoes and get ready for
a day in the woods.”
82 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE MARCH | APRIL 2016