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 born in Louisville, Kentucky 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 and Sylvester Weaver. On stage she was noted for an especially dramatic performing style, and she was among the most-recorded of the classic blues singers.

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.^[1]

After 1932, she worked outside the field of music, running a nursing home in Louisville. She died of a stroke in 1955.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Harris, Sheldon (1994). Blues Who's Who (Revised Ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80155-8
• Stewart-Baxter, Derrick (1970). Ma Rainey and the classic blues singers. London: Studio Vista. SBN 289.79825.6