Sara Martin
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Sara Martin (June 18, 1884 – May 24, 1955) was an American blues singer, in her time one of the most popular of the classic blues singers. She was known as 'The Famous Moanin' Mama'.[1] Martin was also billed as Margaret Johnson and Sally Roberts.[1]
[edit] Biography
Martin was born in Louisville, Kentucky[1] and was singing on the African-American vaudeville circuit by 1915. She began a very successful recording career in 1922, and through the 1920s she toured and recorded with such performers as Fats Waller, Clarence Williams, King Oliver, and Sylvester Weaver.[1] On stage she was noted for an especially dramatic performing style, and she was among the most-recorded of the classic blues singers.
She was possibly the first to record the famous blues song "T'aint Nobody's Bizness If I Do" with Waller on piano in 1922.[2]
In his book, Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers, Derrick Stewart-Baxter says of her:
...she was never a really great blues singer. The records she made varied considerably, on many she sounded stilted and very unrelaxed. ... Occasionally, she did hit a groove and when this happened, she could be quite pleasing, as on her very original "Brother Ben". ... The sides she did with King Oliver can be recommended, particularly "Death Sting Me Blues".[3]
After 1932, she worked outside the field of music, running a nursing home in Louisville. She died in Louisville of a stroke in May 1955.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Thedeadrockstarsclub.com - accessed December 2009
- ^ McWilliams, 1996, accompanying CD liner notes.
- ^ Stewart-Baxter, 1970, p.80
[edit] Bibliography
- Harris, Sheldon (1994). Blues Who's Who (Revised Ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80155-8
- McWilliams, Peter (1996). "Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country". Prelude Press. ISBN 0-931580-58-7
- Stewart-Baxter, Derrick (1970). Ma Rainey and the classic blues singers. London: Studio Vista. OCLC 250212516
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