Linda Martell

In 1962, The Anglos took an eight-hour bus ride to Muscle Shoals, Alabama where they recorded their first R&B single. Re-named Linda Martell and the Anglos, Fire Records released "A Little Tear (Was Falling from My Eyes)" the same year. The single was unsuccessful.[1] The group performed regularly. They also sang backup vocals for R&B performers, such as The Drifters and Jimmy Hughes.[5] Linda Martell and the Anglos (sometimes credited as "The Angelos") released several more singles on the Vee-Jay label, such as "Lonely Hours". David Browne of Rolling Stone called the song "simmering, forlorn girl-group pop".[1] The group parted ways after her cousin got married. Her sister left the group soon after and Martell was a solo act for the first time in her career. For several years, she continued singing R&B music.[5]

While singing on a South Carolina air force base, Martell was heard singing country songs by Nashville furniture salesman William "Duke" Rayner.[5] He offered to arrange for a demo record to be made, but Martell originally declined his offers thinking he was a "kook". However, after much encouragement, Martell accepted his proposal and Rayner became her manager.[1] With the recent country music success of Charley Pride, Rayner believed Martell could be accepted within the same industry. "I figured that if I could find a colored girl that could sing country and western, I'd really have something," he told Ebony in 1970.[5] She then flew to Nashville where she met producer Shelby Singleton. With Rayner present as well, Martell recorded a demo record.[6] She also met with Singleton who convinced her to record as a country singer. Martell was surprised at the decision. "I was a little bit shocked! I was mostly doing pop. But he said, 'You gotta go country'," she told Rolling Stone in 2020.[1]

On May 15, 1969, Martell signed a management contract with Rayner and signed with Singleton's Plantation record label the next day. The Plantation nameplate (whose name derived from slave plantations in the American south) was disliked by Martell. However, she felt she had no choice but to go along with it. Soon after her signing, Singleton found material for Martell to record for the label. Among the first records he found was "Color Him Father", a then-recent pop song by The Winstons. She recorded the song (and ten other tracks) in one 12-hour work session.[1] The song was issued as Martell's first Plantation single in July 1969.[7] It climbed to number 22 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.[8] Its follow-up was Martell's interpretation of "Before the Next Teardrop Falls", which was later covered by Freddy Fender.[1] Martell's version reached number 33 on the Billboard country chart in 1970.[9]

Martell on stage at the Grand Ole Opry with Roy Acuff, 1970.

In August 1970, her debut album was released on Plantation Records titled Color Me Country.[10] The record reached number 40 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart.[11] The album was reviewed favorably by Billboard in 1970, which found her country singing style to be authentic.[12] In later years, AllMusic rated the record three and a half stars with similar commentary.[13] Her final charting single was issued around the same time titled "Bad Case of the Blues".[7][14]

With her new success, Martell was hired by booking agent, Hubert Long, who helped arrange several entertainment opportunities.[1] She soon made television appearances on The Bill Anderson Show and Hee Haw in 1970.[15] She also made her debut on the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcast after Rayner played her recent record for an official at the company.[5] With her Opry debut, she became the first black female artist to play the show and eventually performed there a total of 12 times.[16][17] In the American south, she was marketed as the "First Female Negro Country Artist" and was put on package shows with country artists Waylon Jennings and Hank Snow. Martell later recalled that performing as a black country artist was often challenging. She remembered being taunted by white audiences, who often shouted racial slurs while she was performing. "You're gonna run into hecklers, and I did...You felt pretty awful," she told Rolling Stone.[1]

As Martell's country music career progressed "the taunting lessened but never entirely went away", according to Rolling Stone. The name-calling continued to cause her professional conflict, but Martell continued performing nonetheless.[1] She also ran into other professional conflicts.[6] In May 1970, Rayner sued her because he believed he deserved a higher commission. Singleton helped bring attention away from the lawsuit. Singleton also informed Martell that he would not be promoting her as heavily because he found that label-peer Jeannie C. Riley was selling more records. Martell then left her contract with Plantation and cut several tunes for a different label. Singleton found out and threatened to sue the company. "He blackballed me...It ruined my reputation in country music," she recalled in 2020.[1] After several more years of limited success, Martell ultimately chose to retire from the Nashville music industry.[6]

After leaving Nashville, Martell remained active in other sectors of music. For about two decades, she sang in small clubs in different parts of the United States.[4] This included California, Florida and New York City. In these different places, Martell held various jobs, including entertaining on a cruise ship and opening a record shop. In 1991, she returned to South Carolina to be closer to her children. To make a better living, she became a bus driver for her home region's school district.[1] She also continued to perform in a band on weekends where they entertained functions such as family reunions, weddings and fraternity celebrations.[4] While many residents of her local area were not aware of her former success, co-workers at her school building did. In one high school assembly, a principal spoke of her earlier work: "Others study about black history. We have black history right here in our own school."[1]

In the mid 2000s, Martell retired from her public school career and last performed publicly in 2011 with her band, Eazzy.[1] In January 2014, the Swedish TV program entitled Jills veranda – Nashville (translated as Jill's Porch – Nashville) documented the search for and interview of Martell. The show's hosts traveled to South Carolina to meet Martell, discuss her music and why she abandoned her recording career. The hosts also performed with Martell on some of her songs.[18][17] She became a topic of conversation in 2020 after country artist Rissi Palmer named her Apple Music podcast after Martell's 1970 album, Color Me Country.[19] She also supports the underrepresented voices of BIPOC artists in country music through the Color Me Country™ Artist Grant Fund. [20] In 2021, a GoFundMe campaign was launched by Martell's granddaughter to create a documentary about her career and struggles as a black performer in Nashville.[21][22]