He is an internationally renowned bassist, studio musician and producer. At the age of ten, his lips touched the mouthpiece of a recorder for the first time. This was the initial spark, and probably the most valuable asset, which gave his high school to Martin Engelien. His parents bought him an organ, and at the age of thirteen, a well-meaning neighbour gave him an acoustic guitar. Then he got a bass. At the age of fifteen, Martin Engelien already took a well-known name. He was overwhelmed by inquiries, he became a member of a jazz band at the age of seventeen with his contrabass, while at the age of twenty he passed the Abitur along the way with more than 300 hours of absence on his school certificate. The phrase "hours of absence" meant ironically that he had filled every single one of these hours with intense music.
In 1978 he was on tour with Toto Blanke. Back in Germany he dropped out of university and went to the finance department to declare himself as an independent musician. From this moment on, the musical career ran on steam. In the same year, he released his first album "Noctett" and toured through Europe and the world with jazz musicians such as Charlie Mariano, Joachim Kühn and Toto Blanke. Finally he came back to his roots, the rock, with "Peter Busch und die Bröselmaschine" in 1980.
Three years later, together with Klaus Lage, Wolf Simon and Rocco Klein, he founded the legendary "Klaus Lage Band", which was completed on the keyboard with Göran Walger. With their first hit "1000 and 1 night" they owned the first place in the charts for eleven weeks. Since 1987, Martin Engelien has played not only the bass but also produced the band, of which he was a member for 20 years. As a producer, he also recorded the most successful solo album by the jazz giant Albert Mangelsdorff in 1988. At the turn of the century, Martin Engelien founded his own music publishing house "Flower Town Music", his label "A1 Records" and the "Go Music Studio".
Another spark came to Martin Engelien backstage at "Wetten Dass ???" in 1996 when he developed the concept of his successful monthly concert series "Go Music", in which up to now more than 300 national and internationally renowned musicians have been present. He is also involved in various important developments in the music industry. In addition to co-operation with many such as ENGL, Ampeg, Trace Elliott and many more, he gave important input to Warwick for eleven years, delivered the founding idea for the German bass manufacturer Green Audio and was selected by Luigi Colani as an expert on the construction of the "Colani Upright Bass".
Martin Engelien passed many other musical stations, immortalized his knowledge in a bass textbook and regularly writes columns in the bass magazine "Bass Quarterly".