Electric Light Orchestra
Tony Martell, Founder of the T.J. Martell Foundation, Dies at 90
Martell was a longtime label exec and A&R man who worked with Electric Light Orchestra, Joan Jett, Ozzy Osbourne, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Isley Brothers and others over a career that spanned from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Tony Martell, founder and chairman of the T.J. Martell Foundation, the music industry’s largest foundation for leukemia, cancer and AIDS research, has died at the age of 90. Martell passed away Sunday (Nov. 27) at his home in Madison, New Jersey.
Martell was a longtime label exec and A&R man who worked with Electric Light Orchestra, Joan Jett, Ozzy Osbourne, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Isley Brothers and others over a career that spanned from the 1960s to the 1990s; his highest post was president of CBS International Records.
Yet there’s no question that the Foundation — which has raised more than $270 million for scientific research at hospitals in the United States — is his greatest achievement. He launched it in 1975 to as a promise to his 19-year-old…