Prolific music video maker Martin Kahan dies at 74

Almost immediately, Columbia Records came calling with an assignment, for Scandal’s âLove’s Got a Line on Youâ. It was the first in a series of promos for major labels, and Kahan would become one of the record label’s go-to directors. In the following years, he would shoot videos for Ian Hunter (nominated on MTV VMA “All of the Good Ones Are Taken”), Clarence Clemons (“A Woman’s Got the Power”), Loverboy (“Queen of the Broken Hearts” ), Michael Bolton (“Fool’s Game”), Eddie Money, Heaven, Fastway and more.
As the music video format entered its heyday, Kahan’s eponymous production company delivered the goods for the booming MTV platform, including clips for Bon Jovi (“In and Out of Love,” âShe Don’t Know Meâ), Mötley Crüe (âToo Young to Fall in Loveâ), The Firm with Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers (âSatisfaction Guaranteedâ), Scorpions (âI’m Leaving Youâ) and others. Additionally, Kahan directed KISS’s first music videos featuring the no-makeup members, “Lick It Up” and “All Hell’s Breakin ‘Loose”.
Kahan has not been cataloged by rock. The country music scene would be fruitful for Kahan, who in the mid-1980s had cut mandates for CMT-adapted country music videos for John Anderson (“Countrified”), Sawyer Brown (“Betty’s Bein ‘Bad”, “Heart Don’t Fall Now, âand more), Ricky Skaggs and others.
The Nashville hits continued to come into the ’90s, as Kahan worked on Alan Jackson’s award-winning “Chattahoochee” (1993) and completed several assignments for Emmylou Harris, Hank Williams, Jr. and Kenny Chesney.
Chesney’s August 2000 “I Lost It” would prove to be Kahan’s last turn as a director, as a series of health issues would affect his later years.
The late director is remembered as an enthusiastic storyteller and storyteller.
âDuring his later years at Lakewood,â says his close friend Arthur Levy, CEO of Yidstock Ventures, âKahan never stopped theorizing about the gradual reduction in the production of promotional videos by country music and how which he could return to the fold.