The
American rockabilly singer
Janis Martin who became
famous as the female Elvis
died yesterday September 3,
2007. She was 67. She has
been sick from cancer for
some time.
Janis Martin was a unique
figure in the history of
rockabilly -- there were
other women working in that
male-dominated field , but
Janis Martin was the one
dubbed "The Female Elvis
Presley" by RCA, reportedly
with the approval of Col.
Tom Parker. She had too many
strikes against her for a
lasting career, but she was
good and she left behind the
records to prove it.
Janis Martin was born in
Sutherlin, Virginia March 27
1940. With a stage mother on
one side and a father and
uncle who were amateur
musicians on the other,
Martin was practically
predestined for a performing
career. She was playing and
singing before age five. By
six, she'd mastered chords
on her junior-sized guitar
and was singing in a style
influenced by Eddy Arnold
and Hank Williams. Martin
became a fixture in local
talent contests and won all
of them. Martin was playing
and singing on the WDVA Barn
dance out of Virginia by age
11. By her mid-teens, she'd
appeared alongside the likes
of Ernest Tubb, the Carter
Family, Sonny James, and
Jean Shepard.
From the Barn dance, she
travelled with Glen
Thompson's band for two
years and then went on the
road with Jim Eanes, a
former Star day recording
artist. In 1953, she
appeared at a Tobacco
Festival with Ernest Tubb
and Sunshine Sue. As a
result of this appearance,
Janis was invited to become
a regular member of the Old
Dominion Barn dance in
Richmond, Virginia third
largest in the nation,
ranking only behind the
Grand Old Opry and the
Wheeling, West Virginia Barn
dance.
Her amazing amount of
experience for one so young
helped push her into rock &
roll. It turned out that
Martin had tired of country
music by her mid-teens,
especially the slow ballads,
having been doing them for a
decade. The timing was
perfect, for she discovered
rhythm & blues in the
mid-1950s, and was soon
bringing that material into
her own song lists.
Two staff announcers at WRVA
(the station that carried
the Barn dance over the CBS
network) were successful
songwriters penning the hit
"Little Things Mean A
Lot".When the fifties
exploded with rock or
rockabilly music, they wrote
"Will You, Willyum". Asking
Janis to sing it on the Barn
dance for audience reaction,
and they cut a demo tape to
send to their publisher in
New York. When the demo tape
arrived at Tannen Music in
New York, the publisher not
only accepted the song but
rushed over to Steve Sholes
of RCA Victor. Sholes
contacted Janis contacted
and invited her to Nashville
to record the song on Victor
Records. At the age of
fifteen, she became a
recording artist. This
record was her biggest hit
and on the flip side of the
record was a song called
"Drugstore Rock And Roll"
that Janis wrote herself.
This record sold about
750.000 copies and she
became in constant demand
for appearances all over the
US.
This was at the time that
Elvis Presley was the
biggest rock singer in the
country and also recorded
for RCA Victor. Presley and
RCA were so impressed with
Janis' delivery of a song,
that Janis was given
permission to use the title
of "the Female Elvis
Presley."
Janis went on to appear on
the Tonight Show, American
Bandstand, and Ozark Jubilee
with Red Foley which
featured Brenda Lee before
Brenda began her recording
career. Janis travelled all
over the nation, making
appearances on TV, radio and
stage. She did her first
road tour with Hank Snow and
went on other tours with
Faron
Young, Porter Waggoner, Jim
Edward Maxine and Bonnie
Brown, Johnny Cash, Del Wood
and Carl Perkins. She was
chosen by RCA to become a
regular member of the Jim
Reeves show and travelled
with him exclusively.
Janis was voted the 'Most
Promising Female Artist of
1956" at the annual disc
jockey convention and
received the Billboard
Magazine award on plaque.
With much success behind
her, she formed her own band
called the "Marteens" and
began her travels in the
U.S. and Canada, playing
clubs and fairs. She made a
screen test for MGM,
In 1957, this package show
went overseas to entertain
the armed forces in Europe.
On returning to the States,
Janis appeared on the Today
Show with Dave Garroway to
tell of their experiences
and to sing her latest
record, "My Boy Elvis".
After this show, she was
invited to appear at the
Grand Old Opry.
Martin might have finessed
it all, but for a personal
situation that came up in
1958. She'd been secretly
married since 1956, and her
husband was stationed
overseas in the army; she
went on a European tour and
got to see him in 1958. The
result was that the
17-year-old rockabilly star
became pregnant, and was
dropped by the label in
short order.
When her son was two years
old, Martin tried to keep a
music career going and was
courted by both King Records
and Decca Records before
signing with a Belgian owned
label called Palette, for
which she cut four sides in
1960. She was on her second
marriage by then, and
husband No. 2 (whom she
later divorced) didn't take
well to her career. She
withdrew from music except
for appearances near her
home in Virginia, and then
in the 1970s, on her own
again, formed her own band,
the Variations, and toured
Europe, where she
encountered strikingly
enthusiastic audiences,
ready to embrace her as
though it were still 1958.
For all of her early
success, Martin was never
able to sustain a rock &
roll career, mostly because
of her gender and the
changing times. Her stage
moves and lusty delivery
appeared unseemly (or so
people said, especially on
the country circuit) in a
girl, once the initial
furore and enthusiasm for
rock & roll quieted down.
Additionally, the country
shows on which she was
booked usually put her on
bills and in front of
audiences that weren't
overly enamoured of rock &
roll to begin with, and
Martin found herself caught
between conflicting
currents. Her record company
and management wanted her to
keep pushing rockabilly in
her stage act, while
promoters doing the bookings
preferred that she do
straight country.
You can send flowers to:
Janis Martin and Wayne Whitt
2217 Mount View Rd.
Danville, VA 24540