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=Martin Nievera=

Martin Ramon Razon Nievera (born February5, 1962) is a Filipino singer and songwriter. In a career spanning more than 35 years, Nievera has garnered 18 platinum-, 5 double-platinum-, 3 triple-platinum-, and 1 quadruple-platinum-certified albums. He is often referred to in the Philippines as the "Concert King".

Born in Manila, he is the eldest son of singer Bert Nievera. He spent most of his childhood in Hawaii, where his father was performing with the troupe Society of Seven. This inspired him to become a singer himself, eventually returning to the Philippines in 1982 to pursue his own career. After signing a recording contract with Vicor Music, Nievera rose to prominence the following year with his debut album, Martin... Take One.

Nievera has also achieved success in television, hosting late-night shows The Penthouse Live! (with singer Pops Fernandez), Martin After Dark, and Martin Late at Nite, and the variety show ASAP. Nievera and Fernandez's on-screen "love team" that began on Penthouse in 1982 led to a wedding four years later. Their highly publicized married life bore two sons, but was annulled in 2000.

1962–1981: Early life
Martin Ramon Razon Nievera was born on February5, 1962 in Manila to singer Roberto "Bert" Nievera and Conchita Razon. He has a twin sister, Victoria (nicknamed "Vicki" ); a younger sister, Rachel; and many half-siblings from his parents' other marriages. His father was a member of the Hawaii-based troupe Society of Seven. His mother left her first husband and fled with the twins to Hawaii when they were three years old to finally live with Bert. At this age, Nievera underwent to a surgery to have his inguinal hernia repaired. Attending elementary and high school in Hawaii, he said that he was regularly bullied by his classmates because of his appearance and "I wore a belt and shoes, so they thought belt and shoes meant mayaman ka [you are rich]. I would get beaten up for my lunch money, so my twin sister Vicki would defend me in school. The following day mas nabugbog ako [I was beaten more] because na-defend ako ng babae [I was defended by a girl]."

Nievera developed an interest in music, particularly in singing, at an early age. In their first year in Hawaii, the family lived on the fifteenth floor of the Outrigger Hotel, and the young Nievera "would watch him [his father] perform downstairs with the Society of Seven, and every night I would dream and imagine myself as one of the members of that group, singing for audiences both big and small." While working as a burger flipper at a restaurant that his family owned in Hawaii  or at another family-owned restaurant, called Roadrunner Burgers, in Concord, California (where they would eventually move to), Nievera received singing lessons from his father, learning "how and when to belt and how to end the song in a big way." By the age of fourteen, he was performing with him in Society of Seven shows. Nievera said in 2018, "It all happened in the main showroom in that Outrigger Hotel[...] That room is now known as the Blue Note Hawaii, and I still perform there to this day. It has become a very sacred room for me probably because that's where dad gave me my first set of wings."

In the 1970s, the family relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Nievera enrolled at Clayton Valley High School in Concord, where he was part of the basketball team. He was encouraged by the school's wrestling coach to enter the choir, impressed by a rendition of Morris Albert's "Feelings" that Nievera sang while showering in the locker room. Bert said that his son began to realize "he could sing professionally" when he was sixteen, the same age when he did. Aside from his father, who always supported his singing, Nievera also credits for his skill his Cebuana maternal grandmother, Lourdes Corrales, a famous mezzo-soprano opera singer and radio personality in the 1940s. Unlike Bert, Conchita was against their son's dream, instead wanting him to become a doctor or a lawyer. "She knew what she [his grandmother] and my father went through[...] the [show] business takes a lot out of you."

After graduating from Clayton Valley in 1980, Nievera joined in the 1981 California State Talent Competition in Santa Clara, which he won. As contestant number 1049, he competed against over four thousand other contestants for "[f]our days long[...] you had to win the first day to compete the second day to compete the third day. The third day was the championship, the fourth day is a championship of all the champions of the different categories. So I won the third day, then I won the overall grand champion." Nievera said of his victory, "It was a big moment in my life. That was when I knew I was gonna be a singer." His winning piece was "The Greatest Love of All", the song that he learned from his father while working at the restaurant.

In c. 1980 – c. 1982, Nievera was among the singers chosen to perform with Barry Manilow  at his three-day concert in Concord Pavilion, singing back-up in a choir to the latter's "One Voice". After this experience, he said, "Okay, I'm gonna be a singer." Around this time, when he was nineteen, Nievera's parents were having problems with their relationship. Nievera resented this and attempted to commit suicide. In a 2011 television interview with Boy Abunda, he recalled going to church and venting his anger on God, screaming "What the hell is happening? What else can I do?"

1982–1985: Breakthrough with The Penthouse Live! and Martin... Take One
In 1982, Nievera became more involved in his father's show, but then decided to return to the Philippines to pursue his own singing career. He made his first television appearance in BBC-2's The Pilita and Jackie Show with Pilita Corrales and Jackie Lou Blanco, where he was a monthly guest. (It was Corrales, a friend of his father's, who convinced him to try a career in the country. ) This attracted the attention of local recording executive Vic del Rosario, owner of Vicor Music, who saw his potential and immediately signed him up with his record company. Later, Nievera was given his own television show, The Penthouse Live!, on GMA-7. It featured different female co-hosts every week, with singer Pops Fernandez, whose career was also on the rise, staying as a regular host.

At the 6th Metro Manila Popular Music Festival (colloquially called Metropop) in 1983, Nievera's interpretation of the song entry "Pain" (composed by Alvina Eileen Sy ) won the grand prize in the amateur division. In June, Nievera released his first album, Martin... Take One. It included "Pain", "Be My Lady" (another Metropop entry that year composed by Vehnee Saturno but originally interpreted by Pedrito Montayre) and "Holiday" (which he wrote, inspired by his former girlfriend in California in c. 1981 ). Five months into its release, the album had already sold 30,000 copies, and was certified platinum. In August, he staged his first concert, Wanted: Martin Live, at the Folk Arts Theater in Pasay. It was a sold-out show, and was repeated only two weeks later to another sell-out audience: "Doors were broken, barricades were broken... that was the pandemonium that I experienced very early in my career," Nievera said as he recalled how "several things went wrong during the show". Nievera later claimed that the concert was never televised because he was out of tune "from beginning to end". Nevertheless, "[t]he concert was the realization of my life-long dream as a kid, which is to perform in front of a live audience," he told in 2008. He received the 1983 Aliw Award for Entertainer of the Year; the previous year, he was named the Most Promising Artist.

In March 1984, Nievera marked the opening of the newly constructed ULTRA Football Field in Pasig with a concert called Martin's Rage that was attended by 45,000–55,000 people. Nievera mounted another concert called On the Right Track in October for the opening of the ULTRA Arena. He launched his second album, The Best Gift.

Nievera and co-host Fernandez's onscreen chemistry led them to be dubbed as a "love team". Their relationship with each other developed and turned romantic in real life. He said that their courtship happened "[...]during location shootings in Baguio and other places. [...]Constant togetherness, you know." In 1985, they premiered their first joint concert, Martin and Pops Twogether. On December7, three years after first meeting on the set of Penthouse Live, Nievera proposed to marry Fernandez at her house in Dasmariñas Village, Makati. Fernandez was already pregnant with the couple's first child at the time. On the May11, 1986 episode of Penthouse Live, Nievera announced that their marriage would take place "sometime late next month".

1986–1990: Marriage, films, and Martin After Dark
Nievera and Fernandez married on June28, 1986 at the Santuario de San Antonio in Forbes Park, Makati in what was described by the media as a "fairy-tale wedding". On November 30, Fernandez gave birth to their first child, Roberto Martin (nicknamed "Robin"), named for his grandfather and father respectively.

In 1987, Nievera gave his comeback concert, Airborne, after focusing the last few years on television. Penthouse Live ratings were on the decline. He said in 2011, "It's a bad year for me. My career is on a downswing and[...] This is the worst year of our marriage, too." Nievera and Fernandez almost separated because they were having difficulty in adjusting to their new life as a married couple. Nievera said, "The people around me intimidate Pops as a wife. I don't know how to be a husband; neither does Pops know how to be a wife." Nievera took three weeks off from Penthouse Live with Fernandez to take her and their four-month-old son to Hawaii, where his family was having a reunion, to solve their problem. Nievera denied that there was "professional jelousy" between them, saying "our careers have nothing to do with it." The couple stayed in a small house, but later moved to a bigger one in Alabang, Muntinlupa that Nievera had acquired when he was just starting his career. After five months there, they returned to Hawaii to fix their marriage again. At this point, the producers of Penthouse Live were "freaking out already" because of their absence so they had Edu Manzano, Louie Heredia, and Kris Aquino to take over hosting. Nievera and Fernandez sold the house and bought another, also in Alabang, where they spent "the best years of our marriage."

In 1988, Nievera embarked on a series of shows in the United States "as an 'American singer', not as a Filipino singer", leaving his family in Hawaii but rejoining them for Christmas. They were "having a wonderful time in Hawaii" when Nievera received a call from GMA-7 about a new "Johnny Carson type of show" called Martin After Dark (abbreviated as M.A.D.), whose title was conceived by his maternal half-sister, television writer Gina Tabuena.

In 1989, Fernandez became pregnant with their second child. On January26, 1990, she gave birth to Ram. Contrary to popular belief at the time that he was named after the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, or RAM, which was behind the 1989 coup attempt against then-President Corazon Aquino, his name is actually from his father's, Martin Ramon. He released his fourth album, Miracles, which was dedicated to his sons, and performed his first concert with a 50-piece orchestra.

1991–1995: Roads and ASAP
In 1991, the concert Daydreams premiered. The following year, Nievera embarked on a series of concerts called The No Brownout Series, when the whole country was suffering from widespread power outages, or brownout. On television, M.A.D. got cancelled. He said, "I feel really bad. The station keeps on moving the show, [it is preempted by] special events. When there's a Binibining Pilipinas Pageant, usually held on Saturday, my show is cancelled to give way to Binibining Pilipinas. However, the show was revived on ABS-CBN six months later, after transferring to the network. "There's a misconception that ABS-CBN is 'pirating' me from GMA. Not true. I have no more show at GMA, so my writers are moving to ABS-CBN which offers me to do a show six months later", Nievera clarified.

In 1994, he celebrated the tenth anniversary of the concert On the Right Track by restaging it at the ULTRA. Nievera and Fernandez also restaged Martin and Pops Twogether on its tenth anniversary in 1995; it was their last concert together until rejoining on stage in the late 2000s.

1996–2000: Separation, Journeys, Forever, and Martin Late at Nite
"I start turning to other ways of satisfying my needs as a man — not necessarily sexual. There's a void in my life all too suddenly and I need to fill up that void. This is the year [1996] when things sort of start slowly crumbling. I'm not blaming Pops, I want to make it clear. Career becomes more important in both our lives and it's affecting our marriage. My mistake is that I look elsewhere, if you know what I mean.

"And I meet Katrina. I’m doing a show for the birthday of the owner of Duty-Free Philippines, Benjie Lim. Joji (Dingcong, now my manager), who was then second-in-command to my manager, my brother Luigi (Tabuena), also attends the party on his way to another appointment and he brings along his friends, one of them Katrina. They’re all going to the other party afterwards.

"Is it attraction at first sight? Not at all. I don’t notice Katrina at all; I’m not attracted at all to her the first time I see her. Na-develop lang siguro. Well, I guess what happens from hereon later becomes public knowledge.

"In hindsight, I daresay that A.S.A.P. (the ABS-CBN noontime show) proves to be the downfall of the Pops-Martin marriage. Why? In 1994, Pops and I became very passionate about God; we became Born-again Christians. We became closer, we went to church three times a week, including Sundays. During our first two years as Born-again Christians, we had ourselves to and for each other. During my days-off, I’d tell my driver to have his day-off, too, and I volunteer to be Pops’ alalay, with pleasure. My friends were amused.

"And then the offer to do A.S.A.P. came and suddenly, our Sundays abruptly changed; we could hardly do the same non-showbiz things anymore. Parang na-sacrifice ’yung private life namin for our career. When I look back, I think if one of us was not in showbiz, either her or me, we would still be together today, happily married.

"It’s all my fault, though. I started feeling sorry for myself. After M.A.D., I wouldn’t go straight home and instead go out with friends (Louie Ocampo, etc.) and sleep at our sponsor hotel. Parang nag-binata uli ako. Things began going out of control. I learned how to drink. Nagpunta-punta na ako sa mga bar. I was in this state of being when I met Katrina at the party.

"Our marriage is suffering damaging cracks and we can’t patch them up the way we did back in 1987 when we arrested an impending separation."

1997 "Four months after I met the ‘other woman,’ who’s the ‘only woman in my life now,’ she and I have a decision to make. I feel that our relationship is wrong. Pops isn’t aware of what’s going on between me and Katrina. Pops doesn’t know a thing.

"I compose a song called This Is Your Song, not for Katrina but inspired in a way by our relationship. The song is for Regine (Velasquez) and her movie Wanted: Perfect Mother with Christopher (de Leon). I finish the song in 30 minutes flat.

"From Day One, I know that my relationship with Katrina is wrong. But I cannot stop talking to her or seeing her. She gets a letter from New York University that she’s accepted for her master’s degree. I tell her, ‘Don’t be a fool. Go to NYU. This has been your dream even before I met you, before you even knew I existed. Go to the States and make something of yourself. I’m a married man and (our relationship) will never work.’ Those are my exact words to Katrina. So she leaves, sad goodbyes. Cry dito, cry doon. Everybody suspects that Katrina is having an abortion in the States or giving birth when she’s not pregnant at all; all she wants is to get a diploma. Katrina never asks me to choose; I never intend to leave Pops..."

Studio albums

 * Martin... Take One (1983)
 * The Best Gift (1984)
 * Martin (1985)
 * Miracle (1987)
 * A Martin Nievera Christmas (1988)
 * Dream (1989)
 * A New Start (1991)
 * Roads (1994)
 * Journeys (1997)
 * Forever (1998)
 * Forever, Forever (1999)
 * Return to Forever (1999)
 * Chasing Time (2002)
 * Chasing Time II (2003)
 * Unforgettable (2004)
 * When Love is Gone (2005)
 * Awit ng Puso (2006)
 * Milestones (2007)
 * Ikaw Ang Pangarap (2008)
 * My Christmas List (2008)
 * For Always (2009)
 * As 1 (with Gary Valenciano) (2009)
 * As Always (2010)
 * Himig ng Damdamin (2010)
 * Mga Awit at Damdamin (2012)
 * 3D: Tatlong Dekada (2012)
 * Big Mouth, Big Band (2014)
 * Kahapon... Ngayon (2016)

Live albums

 * Martin Nievera Live at the ULTRA (1987)
 * Martin Live with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (2001)

Compilation albums

 * Martin Nievera's Greatest Hits (1986)
 * Martin Nievera's Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (1992)
 * Ikaw ang Lahat sa Akin (1994)
 * Be My Lady (1994)
 * My Souvenirs (2001)
 * More Souvenirs (2001)
 * Best Wishes: A Wedding Love Song Collection (2004)
 * Martin Nievera: The Discography (2008)
 * 18 Greatest Hits (2010)
 * Duets in Harmony (2010)
 * Off the Record (2013)
 * Under the Covers (2013)
 * My Acoustic (2014)

Box sets

 * The Forever Collection (2010)
 * Unforgettable Souvenirs (2010)

Reissues

 * Miracle (2009)

Extended plays

 * No More Words (with Pops Fernandez) (2012)

Singles

 * Say That You Love Me (1988)
 * You Are My Song (1996)
 * What's On the Other Side (1997)
 * Promise of Love (1998)

Television

 * The Penthouse Live! (1982–1987)
 * Martin and Pops Twogether (1987–1988)
 * Martin After Dark (1988–1998)
 * ASAP (1995–present)
 * Martin Late at Nite (1998–2003)
 * Twist and Shout (2010)
 * The X Factor Philippines (2012)
 * Martin Late at Night (2013)
 * I Love OPM (2016)
 * LSS: The Martin Nievera Show (2018–present)

Film

 * Always and Forever (1986)
 * Si Mister at Si Misis (1986)
 * Payaso (1986)
 * Shoot That Ball (1987)
 * Stupid Cupid (1988)
 * Maria Went to Town! (1988)
 * Sa Puso Ko Hahalik Ang Mundo (1988)
 * Magic to Love (1989)
 * Adarna: The Mythical Bird (1997)
 * Alyas Boy Tigas: Ang Probinsyanong Wais (1998)
 * Masikip sa Dibdib (2004)
 * Wrinkles (2006)

Progress

 * Infobox ✅
 * Lead ❌
 * Early life ✅
 * Career ❌
 * Artistry ❌
 * Legacy ❌
 * Discography ✅
 * Filmography ✅
 * Concerts ❌
 * External links ✅
 * Categories ✅

Tasks

 * Martin Nievera ❌


 * Martin Nievera discography ❌


 * Bert Nievera ❌


 * Robin Nievera ❌


 * LSS: The Martin Nievera Show ❌