Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame Member, Layng Martine Jr. has released a new number one hit, in the form of a memoir of his life. The new book, “Permission To Fly – A Memoir of Love, Crushing Loss, and Triumph,” hit the shelves in recent weeks with high acclaim. Order the book in print version online at Parnassus Books, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The audio book is available on Amazon.
“My personal version of the life I wanted unfolded before me the
moment I heard the simple word “yes” from my mom, the day she thought I
was old enough to venture out on my own. I was 8. From that moment on, I
wanted to be free like I felt on my bicycle. Free to go as far as my
legs and my curiosity could take me. Free to decide every day how I
would spend that day.” writes Martine in the book forward. “But what on
earth could provide that kind of freedom?I had no idea. Nor did I have
any idea of the mistakes I would make and the prices I would pay as my
curiosity and excitement led my search for such freedom. I also had no
idea how much help I would need along the way as I dreamed, and
stumbled, and tried again. I only knew I had to try my wings. So, like a
baby bird, as soon as I could peek over the edge of my comfortable nest
and look around, my mom gave me “Permission To Fly.”
About Layng Martine Jr.
Layng Martine Jr. is an American songwriter whose
compositions have appeared on the country and pop music charts over a
four-decade span beginning in the late 1960s. He grew up in Fairfield
County, Connecticut. He was educated at Mount Hermon School, Denison
University, and Columbia University. After a stint on Madison Avenue
writing ads and a disastrous fling as a restaurant owner Layng and his
wife Linda moved to Nashville where Layng could pursue his dream of
writing songs and where they now live and have raised their three sons.
In 2013, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Some of Martine’s writing credits include Elvis Presley’s
million-selling “Way Down”; The Pointer Sisters’ Top Ten “Should I Do
It” and Trisha Yearwood’s “I Wanna Go Too Far”. He was nominated for a
Grammy Award in 1993 for Best Country Song, for co-writing Reba
McEntire’s “The Greatest Man I Never Knew”. Martine’s song “Rub It In”, a
number one country hit for Billy “Crash” Craddock in 1974, became the
long-running TV commercial called “Plug It In, Plug It In” for SC
Johnson’s Glade Plug-ins air freshening product. In 2009 Martine
authored an article for THE NEW YORK TIMES “Modern Love” column
about his continued love story with his wife Linda after she became
paraplegic in an automobile accident. This article was a Times’
most-emailed “Modern Love” essay. Martine said that the enormous
response to this story was the inspiration for him to write his new
memoir entitled “Permission to Fly ” published in 2019 and recently the
#1 selling book in Nashville. “As exciting and fulfilling as my
songwriting career has been”, Martine says, “this book is mostly about
the challenge of finding an exciting and fulfilling life as a whole”.
The couple has three sons, one of them, Tucker Martine, is a musician
and producer in Portland, OR. Follow Layng on his website at layngmartinejr.com.