Martha Carson
Musician · 1921–2004 · Neon, Kentucky
Best known for
Songwriter
Lead Vocals
Guitar
Martha Carson was a gospel-country singer and songwriter whose hand-clapping, hard-driving spirituals made her one of the most electrifying performers of the early 1950s. Billed as “The Rockin’ Queen of Happy Spirituals,” she wrote and recorded the enduring gospel standard “Satisfied,” and her rhythmic, rafter-shaking style left a direct mark on the young Elvis Presley.
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- Born Irene Amburgey on March 19, 1921, in the coal-country town of Neon, Kentucky, she grew up singing in a musical family and performed with her two sisters as a girl group before turning professional.
- In 1938 the sisters were recruited by radio barn-dance impresario John Lair and joined the cast of the WSB Barn Dance in Atlanta, where they were rechristened with hayseed stage names; her sister Opal went on to a career of her own as Jean Chapel.
- In 1939 she married gospel singer James Roberts, who performed as James Carson, and the couple worked as a sacred-music duet — the “Barn Dance Sweethearts” — with Martha on guitar and James on mandolin, recording for Capitol Records in the late 1940s.
- She kept the Carson name after the marriage ended, and following her divorce she wrote “Satisfied,” the propulsive, backbeat-driven gospel number that became her signature and her breakthrough as a solo artist in 1951.
- The record paired her powerful alto with a handclap rhythm that pointed straight toward rock & roll; her early sessions drew on Nashville talent including Bill Carlisle and Chet Atkins.
- She joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1952, cementing her standing as one of country music’s foremost gospel voices.
- Elvis Presley, who toured on some of the same bills, was a professed admirer — he sang gospel with her offstage and later said she had shaped his stage style more than anyone.
- In 1955 she signed with RCA Victor, where A&R man Steve Sholes recorded her in New York in a lavish pop-gospel style, backing her with choirs and slick arrangements played by big-band-era studio veterans; television host Steve Allen called her an “explosion.”
- As tastes shifted she stepped back from performing near the end of the 1950s, but continued to write songs recorded by country and R&B artists including Faron Young and Clyde McPhatter.
- She mounted a recording comeback with Starday/Gusto in 1977 and made scattered television appearances before retiring around 1990 to care for her second husband, promoter-manager Xavier Cosse.
- Martha Carson died on December 16, 2004, at age 83, remembered as a pioneering figure who carried the fervor of gospel singing to the edge of rock & roll.
