Don Rhodes has written about country music for more than a decade.

Black singer was Opry pioneer

Web posted February 20, 1998

By Don Rhodes
Special Columnist

Linda Martell may well be the only school bus driver featured on a major country music compilation.

Miss Martell now drives buses in Leesville, S.C., but she once sang on national TV shows and on the greatest country radio show of them all: the Grand Ole Opry.

She made country music history in 1969 by becoming the first black female singer to perform on the Opry program, which began in 1925.

Now, she is one of several black pioneers in country music to be honored with the release of From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music, a three-CD boxed set.

The Warner Bros. Records anthology, produced by the Country Music Association, has a suggested retail price of $54.98, but it probably can be found discounted at major record chains.

It is the largest collection (60 songs) of black country music ever undertaken. Each set contains a 60-page booklet detailing the recordings (some made 70 years ago) and the performers.

And when you play the fifth song on the third disc, you will hear Color Him Father by Miss Martell.

``I grew up singing country,'' said Miss Martell, who was born Thelma Bynem. ``My father, Clarence (a minister), loved country music. My three brothers were all musicians.

``We started out singing gospel music at St. Mark Baptist Church in Leesville. I also started singing with a pop band called the Anglos in Columbia when I was 12 and worked with them all around the Columbia area until I was 19.''

It was South Carolina disc jockey Charles ``Big Saul'' Greene who suggested Miss Bynem use Linda Martell as her stage name.

Nashville businessman Duke Rayner heard about her outstanding voice and talked the 23-year-old into flying to Nashville in 1969 for a demonstration recording session and then took the tape to his friend, Shelby Singleton, head of Plantation Records.

With 72 hours, Miss Martell had signed a contract with Plantation Records, made her first recordings with the label and saw the release of her first single, Color Him Father, a remake of a rhythm and blues hit by the Winstons.

It went to No. 14 on the national country music charts and resulted in her first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry just a week after the record was released.

``That was just wonderful,'' she said. ``It was one of the best experiences I ever had because the Opry people were wonderful to me. My daddy came up to Nashville from Leesville to see me on the Opry, and he really enjoyed it.''

Her shows outside Nashville were booked by the respected Hubert Long Agency with her first country nightclub appearance being in Poplar Bluff, Mo.

``I had a couple of hecklers,'' she recalled, ``but I had talked with Charley Pride at a party that Buck Owens and Roy Clark had, and he told me to expect a few of those.''

Eventually the country music industry changed and so did Miss Martell. She lived in Florida, Tennessee, California and New York before moving back to Leesville in 1992.

She still sings throughout South Carolina with a rhythm and blues band called Eazzy.

``We work the nicer clubs,'' she said. ``I don't play dives. Tell your readers that I still love country music. I will forever be a country fan.''

Fans of Miss Martell can write to her at: 119 Chester Road, Leesville, SC 29070.

Sound bite

To hear part of Color Him Father by Linda Martell, off From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music, call INFOLINE at 442-4444 and press 8100.