Since he was very young, Martin Murray was always drawn to music. After attempting several different instruments in his elementary school years, he fell in love with the acoustic guitar and started practicing relentlessly at age 14. Through high school and during his college years, Martin played in several rock bands as a lead singer and guitar player. In the early 2000s, he put his college classes on hold to pursue music full time. Over the course of three years, he wrote over 20 songs, recorded two EPs, and booked hundreds of gigs all over the United States. But he struggled to gain much footing in the acoustic rock world.
In 2007, after a months-long tour across the U.S., he decided to go back to school to finish up his degree in Environmental Studies. His goal was to take a short break from touring, complete his coursework, then take the world by storm with another album of acoustic rock songs and touring.
But life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.
He fell in love with his environmental classes. He took great pleasure in studying the environmental history of California. He saw the problems and destruction occurring to the planet and sought out solutions and answers. He realized that there is still much to be done as humans slowly meander towards a sustainable future. He took classes and finished his degree with emphasis in Sustainable Resource Management, assuming he'd find a job in which he could promote smarter and healthier ways to consume and live as a society.
In this time, he also met the love of his life, married her, and then had his first child. He took an internship with a non-profit organization in Richmond, CA named The Watershed Project. His role was to help engineer and build over 100 artificial oyster reefs that eventually made their way into the San Francisco Bay offshore from Point Pinole in Richmond. These reefs help recruit native Olympia oysters back to the SF bay. This keystone species helps filter bay water and encourages other species to thrive as well. At the tail end of his year-long internship, The Watershed Project commissioned Martin to write a children's song about the oyster reefs. In perfect harmony with his personal life, Martin was writing and singing this childrens song, titled "Oyster Float Beside Me," to his 1yr old daughter, Loretta. He immensely enjoyed hearing her try to sing along with him. The song was a hit within the Watershed Project community, and the idea for Martin and the Green Guitar had sparked.
Over the next couple of years, Martin wrote several kid's sing along songs aimed at promoting environmental issues. He used his mother's kindergarten classroom as a place to test these songs out and see which ones the children would respond to best. As he researched environmental science breakthroughs and the Common Core curriculum, he compiled 10 original songs that make up his first full-length children's album, Sustainable Stories and Singalongs. It is around this album that Martin has built up his fresh new assembly for K-6 grade students.
Now with four kids, Martin still enjoys singing for his wife and children at home. But his work is just beginning. In 2016, he began his career as a full-time children's performer and songwriter, determined to teach kids and adults alike the value and importance of our planet and what we must do as we work together to build a more sustainable future. He stresses that this assembly is not just an Earth Day assembly. It's an Earth Day is Every Day! assembly. The assembly's content and message promote everyday changes a person can make to live a healthier and more sustainable life. It promotes working together as one community living under the same sun. It promotes environmental awareness, appreciation, and responsibility. It promotes recognizing the consequences of polluting actions and what can be done to reverse them. It teaches students that technology and science are bound only by their imagination, and harnessing these tools is the key to the door of our future. It inspires them to be the sustainability engineers we all need in the immediate future. It teaches them that there is no better place than here. It teaches them that there is no better time than now.
Martin is determined to sing his songs with as many people as possible. The end goal for his project is to help inspire and build a sustainable planet. There is much work to be done. But the 1000-mile walk must always start with the first step...
I sure would like to sustain our planet if we have the ability.
How long would you sustain our planet?
We all shout out, "INFINITY!"
