 The
mid 70’s were not kind to Tony Mart’s. Changes
needed to be made and the next generation of Marotta’s,
Tony Mart, Jr and Carmen Marotta implemented a major
change by removing the central stage and making a large
stage against the south wall after removing a portion of
the “Main Bar”. This photograph taken from the
“elbow” of “L-Bar” looking southward shows the large,
new stage behind the Main Bar.
Unfortunately, these changes came about in 1976 and 1977
after Tony Mart had become increasingly ill.
During this rather dark period in Tony Mart’s history,
the club was nearly sold in the spring of 1978.That
turned out to be a great irony of history. The
deal fell through and the club received a tremendous,
resurgence in popularity when former front man and
performer, Joey Powers, turned booking agent, brought to
Tony Mart’s a group from Baltimore named “One For All”.
They had the magic which once again transformed “The
Mart” (as it was then referred to popularly) back into a
late 70’s version of the Golden Years.
Tony Mart’s had once again become a popular, exciting
nightclub where serious sex, drugs, funk and disco were
wildly rampant. This was also the height of the
Tri City Era of local Somers Point, Linwood and
Northfield celebrants who were then turning 18 years of
age.
With just the right combination of seriously smokin’
funk, a phenomenal horn section featuring Tommy Head on
trumpet, Ray Sidnor on saxophone and the consummate
performer, Sammy Dyson on trombone including a perfect
balance of serious musicians and “cute”, appealing
performers, One For All took off, like a rocket, at the
Jersey Shore in the summer of ’78. Tony Mart’s was once
again crowded with hundreds and hundreds of people
including sizable crowds on week days and a mating
frenzy “ladies night” scene on Sunday nights.
 This
is another perspective on the new, larger
production-style stage where bands such as “One For All”
and “The Half Moon Band” performed horn driven funk
during the “disco era” at Tony Mart’s.The music of
the Commodores, Earth Wind and Fire and the Ohio Players
was predominant even though there were also the disco
pop sounds of “Saturday Night Fever”. One of the
songs that would create pandemonious dancing and
partying was Ralph McDonald’s “Calypso Breakdown” from
the Saturday Night Fever album. The song often
created wild partying and even a little mayhem when
performed by One For All.
Unfortunately, much of the local crowd, after Labor Day,
strongly favored rock-n-roll and there was a difficult
dichotomy simply explained as “disco vs. rock”
generating the often heard complaint that “disco
sucks”. Nonetheless, some of the greatest nights
of the last years of Tony Mart’s were driven by the
soulful, jazzy, funk and disco music of One For All and
other funky horn bands. |
