Growing up in New York city, Lilly's educational foundation and life revolved around music, art and theater. She was certain that music was her calling. After attending the School of Performing Arts in Manhattan, Lilly began experimenting with songwriting and small scale performances. An uprooting of family and home put Lilly back on the conventional track of academic pursuits and she put away her efforts for a profession in music. But music always remained her passion. It was only much later in her life that Lilly's professional involvement in the music business took root again.

It began when she joined a small group of singers who met weekly. Lilly's fire and passion for music was immediately rekindled and she soon began singing backing vocals at live performances and in studio sessions for a variety of recording artists. A short time after that, she became a popular front singer and formed her own event band together with keyboardist, producer and band-leader Michael Dolmetsch. Their musical synergy not only maintained a popular and sought-after event band but also produced a creative songwriting-team known as the loop. Their songwriting skills would later be recognized with an honorable mention from Billboard Magazine's newcomer contest for their original composition Goin' Greyhound from the Public Exposure CD.

Other achievements from the loop have included the privilege of having independent artists cover their original songs "Strong Enough" and "Call Me", live concert performances in both public and private settings as well as the 2008 release of their second adult-contemporary, singer-songwriter CD, Through the Night. 

Lilly's successful event band and the loop's songwriting was a pleasant journey along two parallel lanes of sound. In a very natural, organic manner, these two sound lanes began to fuse into one. A new and signature-style blend of jazz-soaked blues and soul took shape and became the moving force behind Lilly Martin's latest CD,  The Velvet Mission, (2012).