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Martin, the guest caller at the Alaska Folk Festival, was born about a half-mile from his current home in Vancouver, Wash. When he was a kid, there was a square dance every so often at the elementary school behind his house. One of his neighbors was the banjo player.
"I was really into the music, but I was too shy to go see him play banjo," Martin said. "I didn't dance. They couldn't drag me there."
It would be almost 30 years until anyone did.
In the meantime, Martin and one of his brothers got turned on to folk music through the old Pete Seeger guitar and banjo songbooks. It was the folk era of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Martin had cousins who knew a little bit of bluegrass, folk and blues, and soon he too could play bluegrass and old-time on the guitar and banjo.
Martin met his wife, Nancy, through music. They married 32 years ago. The Martins played throughout the Northwest for years, and by the early 1980s they were tinkering in Irish music. A friend, Danny Hathaway, was organizing Irish dances in Portland and persuaded Martin to play at a dance.
"I was up there on the bandstand watching people dancing, thinking it was kind of cool, and then suddenly there was someone that needed a partner," Martin said. "(Hathaway) dragged me kicking and screaming. About five minutes later, I was having a blast."
At that point, it was difficult to keep Martin off the dance floor. He immediately became involved in Portland's growing contra dance scene and traveled to Port Townsend to hear Phil Jamison and Bob Dalsemer call at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes.
"Those guys were calling southern Appalachian square dances, done in a circle, and I just thought, 'My god, that's incredible,'" Martin said. "It was so much fun and so easy to get into. It was fast, and the dance figures they were teaching were old. It was kind of like a connection with people from the Civil War era."
Martin returned to Vancouver and began researching southern Appalachian square dancing for months. He found 14 books, a videotape and a few recordings. He broke down the footage, transcribed all the dance figures he could find on to 2-inch-square pieces of paper, scribbled, erased and matched the squares against each other until he had figured out the roots of the variations.
Martin won't call himself an expert, but he has compiled a thorough old-time resource, including his research on squares, at www.bubbaguitar.com.
When Hathaway and his wife moved to England in the mid-1980s, Martin began calling - contra, Scandinavian, Irish, English, French and traditional folk dances. Portland's square dancing scene was relatively stagnant for a decade, and he called mostly at weddings and school functions.
The scene picked up in the mid-1990s with four old-time musicians - Stefan Puchalski, David Mount, Ron Andrico and Alan Garren. Then the Dickel Brothers - young punks converted to old-time - began to develop a following around town. More and more musicians began picking up the banjo, fiddle and mandolin, and soon Portland had a full-fledged revival. Martin first realized it when some of the punks asked him to call a dance at Disjekta, an old fraternal house converted into a venue.
"It was an ancient, old place, spooky and cool and candle-lit," Martin said. "Bands were setting up on-stage, and I was getting my dance notes organized. I was wondering who was going to come, and they were saying all their friends. I was thinking, 'Young people aren't going to be into this.' But pretty soon all these people showed up. Some of them parked their skateboards against the wall. Some of them had rings in their nose and tongue and piercings all over the place. I couldn't believe it. It was this roaring madhouse, and it was just an amazing dance."
Nowadays, Government Issue Orchestra and the Foghorn String Band are two of the best-known old-time bands in Portland. There are at least two square dances a month that draw a young crowd. Martin, revered by the younger crowd, calls for Foghorn and also teaches classes in calling and old-time playing.
"It's a bunch of young people that got turned on by the dancing, and I'm riding their coat tails," Martin said. "It really is just luck for the right people, the right group and this funny, old hillbilly dancing to find a place in this young, hip urban crowd. I'm still amazed, and I think a lot of them are too."
Foghorn played at the 29th festival and returns this year, 10 p.m. on Friday, April 15, at the Armory. The group convinced Martin to make the trip. He has never been to Alaska and has not flown on a plane in 20 years.
"I'm fascinated about the old musicians up there," Martin said. "I don't know anything about Alaska. To me, it's like going to Australia or something."
"I'm going to be staying at this hotel (The Alaskan) where I understand they play music until 4 in the morning," he said. "I think that Foghorn is going to be crashing in my room there. I met (folk festival board president) Maridon Boario last summer, when she came down for the (Columbia Gorge Bluegrass Festival), and I know she's a party animal, so I'm expecting it to be quite a time when we're up there. I expect to come back tired."
   
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