Janis Martin

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 Barndance 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 Barndance, she traveled with Glen Thompson's band for two years and then went on the road with Jim Eanes, a former Starday 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 Barndance in Richmond, Virginia third largest in the nation, ranking only behind the Grand Old Opry and the Wheeling, West Virginia Barndance. 

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.