Martha Carson
Martha Carson ( born May 19, 1921 in Neon, Kentucky, as Irene Amburgey, † December 16, 2004 in Nashville, Tennessee) was an American country - gospel musician. Initially, she was a member of the Coon Creek Girls, then appeared with James Carson and had finally in the 1950s, their own band. Your enriched with rock and roll elements gospel influenced many of her contemporaries, such as Elvis Presley.
- 2.1 Singles
- 2.2 albums
Life
Childhood and youth
Carson was born in Kentucky as Irene Amburgey. Back in high school, she learned to play on her guitar folk songs and spirituals and wrote her first songs before she was ten years old. With her two sisters Bertha and Opal (later known as Jean Chapel ) she appeared as Sunshine Sisters on the local radio.
Career
1939 met Amburgey the mandolin player James Carson, son of the musician Fiddlin 'Doc Roberts while she was playing in Asa Martin Morning Roundup on WLAP. The two married shortly thereafter and moved to Bluefield, West Virginia, where they performed at WHIS. That same year, the folklorist and moderator John Lair discovered the three Amburgey Sisters and brought them into his Renfro Valley Barn Dance as " Coon Creek Girls" one. During this time, they adapted the name " Martha Carson ".
1940 changed Carson and her husband James for WSB Barn Dance in Atlanta, Georgia, where both as " the Barn Dance Sweethearts " occurred. Their repertoire consisted mainly of gospels and other spiritual songs with James on mandolin / vocals and Martha on guitar / vocals. In these years, James and Martha Carson one of the most famous country music duo in the country and were started from 1949, einzuspielen plates for Capitol Records.
1950 parted James and Martha, now began to work at WNOX in Tennessee. However, for the time being no further solo singles from Carson could be included because Capitol, the duo had to 1957 under contract. Instead recordings with Bill Carlisle and other WNOX - Stars were produced; Carson is among other things the female singer on Carlisle's hit Too Old to Cut the Mustard. But Fred Rose, an influential person within the Nashville country music scene, Capitol was able to convince them to release Carson under the contract. Already her first solo single on Capitol, Satisfied, made it into the charts and enabled her appearances on WSM. A year later she joined the ensemble of the Grand Ole Opry, the Country 's most successful show in the United States.
The next few years on Carson remained successful with hits such as Journey to the Sky, This Ole House and Saints and Chariot and their tours with the likes of Little Jimmy Dickens, Ferlin Husky and the ascending Elvis Presley. Presley later said that Carson and after performances he often sang gospel songs together and they have affected his performances, like no other artist. In 1954 she had married Xavier Crosse, who had worried her a contract with RCA Victor and with whom she lived in New York City in 1955. Crosse it was he who brought them into the Steve Allen Show, through which they received national recognition outside the country scene.
End of the 1950s, Carson turned at times a more urban country-pop to, but her popularity slowly but surely began to wane. In the 1980s, it was barely present in public. She died in 2004.