Linda Martell (born Thelma Bynem; June 4, 1941) is an American singer. She became the first commercially successful black female artist in the country music field and the first to play the Grand Ole Opry. As one of the first African-American country performers, Martell helped influence the careers of future Nashville artists of color.
Thelma Bynem arrived into a segregated world. Born in 1941, one of five children, she grew up in the small town of Leesville, South Carolina, which had separate churches for white and black people. Her father, Clarence, was a sharecropper (other fellow sharecroppers still had homes on white farms, according to local historian Louise Riley). Thelma’s mother, Willie Mae, toiled away in a chicken slaughterhouse, which remains one of the central industries in the now combined towns of Batesburg-Leesville. Thelma began cooking dinners for her family when she was seven; it was the only way she could avoid working in the fields.
As a teenager in the late Fifties, Thelma formed a trio, the Anglos, with one of her sisters and their cousin, and they began performing at local clubs. Visually and vocally, Thelma came across like a Southern version of Ronnie Spector, a deep throb embedded in a big voice. A local DJ, Charles “Big Saul” Greene saw her sing at school. He soon played a pivotal role in her transformation changing her stage name to Linda Martell.
Initially billed as Linda Martell & the Anglos, the group released its first single, 1962’s “A Little Tear (Was Falling From My Eyes)” on the New York-based Fire label. Martell remembers taking a nine-hour bus ride to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to cut it. It wasn’t promoted and didn’t sell. The group released a couple of other singles, including “Lonely Hours,” on Vee-Jay, home to the earliest U.S.-released Beatles singles. Credited to the newly spelled Angelos, which now included Martell’s brother Elzie (Lee for short), “Lonely Hours” was simmering, forlorn girl-group pop. But it too did nothing for their career or bank accounts.
She moved to Nashville with her second husband, TV-repair shop owner Ted Jacobs, and their combined four children from their previous marriages. Singleton hooked her up with the Hubert Long Agency, a Nashville company specializing in booking country acts. She was advertised in the South as the “First Female Negro Country Artist.” After a disturbing first show in Missouri, she appeared at an Austin country festival with acts including Waylon Jennings. At another, she was on the bill with baritone-voiced star Hank Snow. She made several appearances on country music television programs and released two more singles with Plantation.
In 1969, Martell made her debut at the Opry, where, she revelled in two standing ovations and appeared there a total of 12 times. But racism was forever in the background and on one occasion Martell was booked for a show in Beaumont, Texas, but the promoter cancelled it when she arrived and he saw she was black.
Fans would tell her she didn’t sound black, which took her aback; she had no idea what that meant. Charlie Pride gave her advice on how to survive in country: Develop a thick skin and get used to the name-calling. But adjusting to the taunts was not so easy. After a while, the taunting lessened but never entirely went away.
Following a series of business conflicts with both her manager and her producer, Martell was left no option but to leave her recording contract. Singleton halted her career when he threatened to sue the now-forgotten label and blacklisted her from the whole country industry. Martell’s reputation was ruined through no fault of her own so she decided to give up her professional career in music by 1974 and then disappeared into oblivion.
Over the next several decades, she lived in various states and continued performing music. To make a living, she worked in public education and returned to South Carolina in the 1990s. Her last two decades have been especially difficult. In 2004, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a difficult radiation treatment, eventually retiring from her job. When she sang, it was with a local R&B cover band, Eazzy.
One of the last times she sang publicly was in 2011, when Eazzy were booked for a Christmas party in town that benefited Alzheimer’s research. She lived in a mobile home until, prompted by health concerns, her daughter Tikethia brought her mother to live with her and her family.
(Edited from Rolling Stone & Wikipedia)