After enduring something of a troubled childhood and early teenage years, Marty enrolled in the US Navy in 1942 at the age of 17. Stationed in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean, Marty spent whatever spare time he had learning to play the guitar, and writing songs that were close in feel to the traditional Hawaiian songs that he was regularly exposed to. Indeed, Marty would come to love traditional Hawaiian music, a style he would return to time and again during the course of his career. Upon leaving the navy in 1947 he pursued a musical career, making his chart breakthrough in 1952. In 1957 he recorded Songs Of The Islands, his first such venture into Hawaiian music, with the resulting album being highly acclaimed at the time of release. Hallmark.