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If you’re here, chances are you’ve just learned Beyoncé won Album of the Year at the Grammys for her 2024 country record, Cowboy Carter. While giving her acceptance speech, she dedicated the award to “Ms. Martell,” referring to the trailblazing country artist Linda Martell.
On the album, there is a track called “The Linda Martell Show,” which features the titular legend herself. She is also featured on the song, “SPAGHETTII.” Martell is a staple in the country music world; She is a pioneer for Black women in country music, and Queen Bey paid homage as she dove into the genre.
For a figure so prominent in country, unfortunately little is known about Martell’s career and life aside from what has been documented in her in-depth interview with Rolling Stone from 2020. Ahead, everything to know about Martell.
Martell was born and raised in South Carolina.
Martell (Thelma Bynem) was born on June 4, 1941, in Leesville, South Carolina, which at the time was in the heart of the segregated South. Her father was a sharecropper, and her mother worked in a chicken slaughterhouse, and from as early as seven years old, Martell would cook dinner and take care of her siblings.
Her singing career began at her Baptist church. Later, as a teenager, Martell formed an R&B group, The Anglos, with her sister and cousin, and they would perform at their school and at local clubs.
One day, a DJ from the area saw Martell singing. His name, according to Rolling Stone, was Charles “Big Saul” Greene. “He said, ‘Thelma ain’t good for a stage name,’” she told the outlet. “He scribbled on a piece of paper, and said, ‘Your name is Linda Martell. You look like Linda. That fits you.’”
From there, the girl group’s name was slightly changed to Linda Martell & The Anglos, and they dropped their first single, “A Little Tear (Was Falling From My Eyes),” in 1969.
The group didn’t see much commercial success, but “we learned that the music business is most difficult, and you can really, really be fleeced,” Martell told Rolling Stone.
After the Anglos split, Martell went on to pursue a solo career. During a performance at a local Air Force base, she was discovered by prominent Furniture store-owner William “Duke” Rayner, per Rolling Stone. Rayner also reportedly introduced Martell to Shelby Singleton Jr. of Mercury Records. To her surprise, Singleton insisted that she sing country. She signed Rayner as her manager and a one-year record deal with Singleton, according to Rolling Stone.
Martell only has one album.
On August 7, 1970, Martell released her first—and only—studio album, Color Me Country. All 11 songs were recorded in a single, 12-hour work day, according to Rolling Stone. In the article, Martell recalls how Singleton would give her and the musicians a song on the spot, and they would instantly have to learn and play it.
Three days after the album was recorded, she released her hit single, “Color Him Father.” It changed everything. “From then on, I was Linda Martell and doing country music,” she told Rolling Stone.
Martell was the first Black solo artist to perform at the Grand Ole Opry.
In 1969, Martell received the honor of performing at the Grand Ole Opry, making her the first Black female solo artist to do so. She told Rolling Stone that she remembers singing there 12 times and received two standing ovations.
Martell’s career was sadly short-lived.
Being a Black woman living in the South during the ’60s and ’70s was an uphill battle, especially for someone in country music. “You’d be singing and they’d shout out names and you know the names they would call you,” Martell told Rolling Stone. Following the release of Color Me Country, she moved to Nashville, where Rolling Stone reports that she initially was promoted as the “First Female Negro Country Artist.”
In the same article, Martell recalled a gig in Beaumont, Texas, where the promoter cancelled her show after he saw the color of her skin. She also shared that fans would often tell her that she didn’t “sound Black.” She told Rolling Stone about a time when she was invited to sing on the TV show Hee Haw, and while she was rehearsing, an executive stopped her to “correct” her pronunciation of certain the words.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute. I’m singing this song—I’m gonna sing it like I always sing it,’” she told Rolling Stone. “And that’s what I did. He wasn’t too happy about it. But I did anyway.”
“When you’re playing to an all-white audience—because Lord Jesus, they are prejudiced—you learn to not say too much,” Martell told the magazine. “You can carry it a little too far if you’re correcting somebody. So you learn how not to do that.”
The prejudice on stage and off never really went away. “You still heard some names. Maybe not loud names, but you’d hear them…You wonder why people do it. Why not just sit there and enjoy the music? That time, that’s what you heard,” she told Rolling Stone. “But I guess you go through anything.”
Martell became a bus driver after leaving the music industry.
After leaving Singleton’s label, Martell returned home to South Carolina and moved into a mobile home. In the mid-’70s, she had a stint singing on a cruise ship in California, before moving to the Bronx and opening a record shop. “One way or another, I was always associated with music,” Martell told Rolling Stone.
In the early ’90s, she started working as a bus driver for her hometown’s school district, also helping out in a classroom. She said the students didn’t know about her past career as a singer, but every once in a while they would hear one of her songs. “They were amazed,” she told Rolling Stone. “They said, ‘Who’s that lady? Is that you?’ ‘Yeah, baby, that’s me.’” She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, and retire from her job at the school.
There is a documentary being made about Martell’s life.
In a note written by Martell’s granddaughter, Marquia (Quia) Thompson, and posted to the official Linda Martell website, 4th iMpact Media Group Production has been working to made a documentary about Martell’s life and legacy. The film, called Bad Case of The Country Blues: The Linda Martell Story, is just a few months away from completion, and the team has created a GoFundMe to “raise more capital for travel expenses to complete filming, pay for legal expenses and fund our distribution plan.” Donations would also go towards hosting bigger screenings of the movie and submission to film festivals.