Creating hope

When a devastating illness forced Martha Marlow to quit art school and stop performing music, she had to find a new way to share her talents with the world.

WORDS by GENEVIEVE GANNON

You may not realise it, but you already know and love the honey-toned voice of Aussie singer-songwriter Martha Marlow. In 2014, she brought the perfect dash of longing to Randy Newman’s Feels Like Home for a moving series of Qantas ads. Martha’s rendition was praised as “soul-stirring”, but it might never have existed if her talent hadn’t touched the heart of one of the world’s greatest living composers. The story goes that the ad campaign’s creative director, Neil Lawrence, had asked several artists to record versions of Feels Like Home to help him convince Newman to grant him permission to use the song. In a moment of inspiration, Neil asked the daughter of a friend how she would perform it. Martha was only 21, but she had a reputation for…

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The Australian Women's Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 2021

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