Martha Carson
Martha Carson (1921–2004) was a singer, guitarist and songwriter from eastern Kentucky who sang gospel duets with her first husband, James Carson, in the 1940s and then became a solo gospel singer with her own song “Satisfied,” recorded in Nashville in 1951. She joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1952, and from 1955 RCA Victor recorded her in New York, where she was billed as “The Rockin’ Queen of Happy Spirituals.”
She was born Irene Amburgey on 19 March 1921 in Neon, Kentucky. Her father, a miner and farmer, played gospel music with her mother, and she and her two sisters worked in rural Kentucky as the Sunshine Sisters in 1936. After a short spell with the Coon Creek Girls on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, the sisters joined the WSB Barn Dance in Atlanta around 1939 as the Hoot Owl Holler Girls, and there Irene became “Martha.”
In 1939 she married James Roberts, a gospel singer and mandolin player at WSB and the son of the fiddler Doc Roberts. They sang gospel duets on the station, and an announcer’s slip gave them the name James and Martha Carson, with James on mandolin and Martha on rhythm guitar. They first recorded in Atlanta for the small White Church label, with sides including “I Ain’t Got Time” and “There’s an Open Door Waiting for Me.” Capitol then signed them. From 31 March 1949, when they recut “I Ain’t Got Time” in Atlanta, to October 1950 they recorded for Capitol with Dee Kilpatrick producing, first in Atlanta and then at Castle Studio in Nashville. Their Capitol sides included “He Will Set Your Fields on Fire” and “I’ll Fly Away.”
The Carsons were working at WNOX in Knoxville when the marriage ended, and while touring with Bill Carlisle in that period Martha wrote “Satisfied.” She recorded it for Capitol at Castle Studio on 5 November 1951, with Ken Nelson producing. Carlisle sang harmony and played rhythm guitar, Chet Atkins played lead guitar and her sister Opal sang harmony and played banjo, with Ernie Newton on bass and Marvin Hughes on piano. The song became a gospel standard. She also sang with Carlisle’s group, the Carlisles, on their hits “Too Old to Cut the Mustard” and “No Help Wanted,” and her own Capitol sessions went on until September 1954, among them “I’m Gonna Walk and Talk with My Lord” (1952). She joined the Opry in 1952, and Elvis Presley, a fan of her gospel records, met her on tour during his Sun years.
RCA Victor signed her in 1955. Steve Sholes recorded her at Webster Hall in Manhattan, with studio bands led by Charles Grean and George Barnes on lead guitar, and later with choirs and horn players such as Billy Butterfield; “This Ole House” and “Let the Light Shine on Me” were cut there in September 1955. She played nightclubs and appeared on network television, and Steve Allen later called her an “explosion,” but she turned down Sholes’s suggestion that she move from gospel to rock and roll.
Her nightclub years ended by 1958. She made singles for Cadence in Nashville in 1958, with Archie Bleyer and Owen Bradley producing, for Capitol again in 1960 and for Dot in 1961. In August 1963 she recorded an album for the Sims label at RCA’s Studio B in Nashville, with Grady Martin, Harold Bradley, Bob Moore and Hargus “Pig” Robbins. She also wrote secular songs that were recorded by Faron Young, Clyde McPhatter and Mac Wiseman. In 1977 she recut “Satisfied,” “Old Blind Barnabas” and other songs for a Gusto-Starday album, and in 1997 she recorded again in Nashville, with Harold Bradley on rhythm guitar and Buddy Harman on drums. She died on 16 December 2004, at the age of 83.
