Lewis Martin
Lewis Martin is a Dominican guitarist, composer, songwriter, and guitar teacher based in San Francisco. At the age of 16, he was caught by the magic of the guitar while living in Nagua City. He then moved to Santo Domingo for college and received a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design while also studying harmony, theory, and guitar techniques, as the burning desire of making his own music grew in his soul. Soon he started playing with numerous rock, funk, and metal bands and began teaching in several music schools and recording for local artists in Santo Domingo.
Lewis is influenced by legendary artists like Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Carlos Santana, Metallica, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Rage Against The Machine . . . and the list goes on.
In 2008, he recorded an EP with his band Zigzag called “Llegar A Ti” (available on all digital platforms), fusing rock and funk grooves. Zigzag reached number one on local rock radio stations for a few months. In 2009, he participated in the Messenger Mag Music Fest with “Otraversion,” ending as one of the finalists and favorite bands, with Lewis getting lots of attention for his flashy technique and stage performance.
From 2010-19 he lived and gigged in the tourist area of Bávaro, becoming a hired gun playing with the majority of the local and foreign artists, especially the Jonny’s Rock cover band from 2012-2014. Lewis was focused on his blues-rock and Latin project, full of exciting instrumental arrangements, experimentation, and radiant Caribbean guitar riffs. After playing many genres and styles of music – bachata, merengue, bossa, salsa, cumbia, blues, and rock, among others – Lewis developed his melodic vision and harmonic landscape by merging the Latin territory with rock, blues, and neoclassical rock, giving rise to a new musical spectrum and gorgeous compositions.
In 2015, he played at the Punta Cana Jazz Festival, where he excelled with his fantastic style of playing guitar. In 2016, he won the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Punta Cana band content with the Fred Rubin band. In 2017, Lewis played on the Elvis Presley tribute show with the renowned Elvis double from Las Vegas, Michael Cullipher. In the same year, he was part of the band of the Heat Latin Music Awards celebrated in Cap Cana. In 2018, he collaborated on the arrangements and recordings of songs by the Colombian artist Gustavo Chaverra (based in Punta Cana).
In 2019 Lewis started to play the bass and record demos of his songs, learning the tricks of music production. Thus began the journey to make his debut album Combustion, an instrumental record released in early 2021. Ignited by his distinctive, majestic guitar, the album burns with creativity that melds Rock with vibrant Latin rhythms, Caribbean melodies, and all the passion and incandescence of the Blues guitar. Lewis is now working on his second solo album while gigging and teaching in the Bay Area. Lewis teaches private lessons on guitar and bass and also teaches band workshops and group guitar classes.