When I cited Wanda Jackson as being the first woman rocker I may have spoke a little out of turn but it's true that I had to do a lot of searching and didn't find anyone else until recently and that was on a tip in an e-mail from Tom Simon who has an excellent web site on Rockabilly. (You must remember that this era was before my time and I got into the rockabilly scene at the time when it was considered retro- i.e. the 80s.)
That being said, let me introduce you to the only woman referred to as "The Female Elvis Presley". Like Elvis and Wanda Jackson, Janis Martin started at a very, very early age in music, playing guitar and singing in a style with influences like Eddy Arnold and Hank Williams. She was born in Sutherlin, Virginia to a musical family on March 27, 1940 and received complete encouragement from them. At thirteen she was singing songs like Ruth Brown's Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean. She won many talent shows and by the time she reached her teens she'd made appearances alongside Ernest Tubb, the Carter Family, Sonny James, Martha Carson and Jean Shepard. By 1953, she was invited to become a regular at the Old Dominion Barndance in Richmond, VA which was only outranked by Grand Old Opry in Nashville and the Wheeling Barndance in West Va. When you compare the dates and their careers you can see that Janis was Wanda's peer in every respect in the beginning.
By her mid-teens she had shed the country roots and was going strong into R & B and her big break was with the song "Will You, Willyum" which she recorded at the Barndance. This recording was sent to New York, by the songwriters, to RCA who contacted her personally and invited her to record the song with Chet Atkins, Grady Martin, Buddy Harman and Floyd Cramer in Nashville in the same place that Elvis recorded "Heartbreak Hotel.". This was to be her biggest hit along with a "B" side that she penned herself titled, "Drugstore Rock and Roll". The record sold 750,000 copies which was absolutely phenomenal for the time and demand for her live appearances from all over the U.S. proliferated. She became an industry favorite. She played on the Tonight Show and American Bandstand then toured with Hank Snow. The list of other artists she toured with is like the who's who of Rock which included Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and was chosen by RCA to be a regular of the Jim Reeves show. In 1956 she was voted "Most Promising Female Artist" at a disc jockey convention and received a Billboard Magazine award.
Eventually, she formed her own band, called them the "Marteens" and toured with them throughout the U.S. and Canada mostly playing clubs and fairs. After she did a screen test with MGM, in 1957, she went overseas to do shows for the Jim Reeves show entertaining U.S. troops. When she returned to the States she talked about her experiences on the Today Show hosted by Dave Garroway and performed her latest recording, "My Boy Elvis". She made an appearance on Grand Old Opry immediately following, being the youngest performer to ever appear there, but was sidelined by becoming pregnant by her husband ( she had been secretly married since 1956 to him) when she visited him in Fall of 1957 during her Jim Reeves tour. She was summarily dropped by the recording label at the tender age of 17 !
She gave birth to a son and then made another try at her career less than two years later and several U.S. recording companies showed interest but ended up signing with a company in Belgium, Palette, for which she cut four sides to singles in 1960. She had remarried and found her husband was less than supportive of her career ambitions. After this she returned to the States and kept her career local in Virginia. Later in the 70s she attempted to revive her career with a new band Variations in which her son was the drummer and toured Europe quite successfully, adding big band numbers in her repertoire. On her 42nd birthday she played her first date in England and had kept performing in some capacity up until her recent death of cancer on September 3, 2007 at age 67. She was preceded in death by her son who had died the first month of that year.
Because of the resurgence in popularity of rockabilly music which really took off in the 80s, Janis' records had become collector's items. Her RCA recordings were reissued by Bear Family at that time onto two LPs, which are now available, along with the Palette recordings on a single CD. In 1996 she made an album with Rosie Flores, a retro rockabilly performer, and they made Rockabilly Filly together, reissuing among others, a cover of her own "Blues Keep Calling". In conclusion, I would add that on her own turf in Virginia, the way she delivered her rock-n-roll style kept her at arms length to the local country music audiences and even some of the performers. Janis did not make the distinction between her basic roots and the brand of rock she actually preferred early in her career and with which she became a success. Apparently, she wasn't called "The Female Elvis" for no reason but her contribution to rock and roll is undeniable and she was a powerful performer clear up to the end.
All rights reserved
February 18, 2009
Evelyn M. Wallace
Discography
1956 Will you, Willyum B/W Drugstore Rock and Roll (a single)
1956 Bang, Bang
1956 Ooby Dooby (a single)
1956 Let's Elope Baby ( a single)
1956 Love Me to Pieces (a single)
1957 My Boy Elvis ( a single)
1956-60 The Female Elvis, a compilation LP by Bear Family Records, circa 1980
1995 Rockabilly Filly w/Rosie Flores, High Tone Records
Rockin' you outta this world,
The Castle Lady ! !
2 comments:
I knew Elvis a little. Buddy Holly was my High School friend. Here is my eye-witness history of them together.
Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Joe Ely, and the Cotton Club
by Johnny Hughes,
February 2009
Elvis Presley was leaning against his pink, 1954 Cadillac in front of Lubbock's historic Cotton Club. The small crowd were mesmerized by his great looks, cockiness, and charisma. He put on quite a show, doing nearly all the talking. Elvis bragged about his sexual conquests, using language you didn't hear around women. He said he'd been a truck driver six months earlier. Now he could have a new woman in each town. He told a story about being caught having sex in his back seat. An angry husband grabbed his wife by the ankles and pulled her out from under Elvis. I doubted that.
Earlier, at the Fair Park Coliseum, Elvis had signed girl's breasts, arms, foreheads, bras, and panties. No one had ever seen anything like it. We had met Elvis' first manager, Bob Neal, bass player, Bill Black, and guitarist Scotty Moore. They wanted us to bring some beer out to the Cotton Club. So we did. My meeting with Bob Neal in 1955 was to have great meaning in my future. I was 15.
The old scandal rag, Confidential, had a story about Elvis at the Cotton Club and the Fair Park Coliseum. It had a picture of the Cotton Club and told of Elvis' unique approach to autographing female body parts. It said he had taken two girls to Mackenzie Park for a tryst in his Cadillac.
Elvis did several shows in Lubbock during his first year on the road, in 1955. When he first came here, he made $75. His appearance in 1956 paid $4000. When he arrived in Lubbock, Bob Neal was his manager. By the end of the year, Colonel Tom Parker had taken over. Elvis played the Fair Park Coliseum for its opening on Jan. 6th, with a package show. When he played the Fair Park again, Feb. 13th, it was memorable. Colonel Tom Parker and Bob Neal were there. Buddy Holly and Bob Montgomery were on the bill. Waylon Jennings was there. Elvis was 19. Buddy was 18.
Elvis' early shows in Lubbock were:
Jan 6th 1955, Fair Park Coliseum. Feb 13th. Fair Park, Cotton Club April 29 Cotton Club June 3: Johnson Connelly Pontiac with Buddy Holly, Fair Park October 11: Fair Park October 15: Cotton Club, April 10, 1956: Fair Park. Elvis probably played the Cotton Club on all of his Lubbock dates. He also spent time with Buddy Holly on all his Lubbock visits.
Buddy Holly was the boffo popular teenager of all time around Lubbock. The town loved him! He had his own radio show on Pappy Dave Stone's KDAV, first with Jack Neal, later with Bob Montgomery in his early teens. KDAV was the first all-country station in America. Buddy fronted Bill Haley, Marty Robbins, and groups that traveled through. Stone was an early mentor. Buddy first met Waylon Jennings at KDAV. Disk jockeys there included Waylon, Roger Miller, Bill Mack, later America's most famous country DJ, and country comedian Don Bowman. Bowman and Miller became the best known writers of funny country songs.
All these singer-songwriters recorded there, did live remotes with jingles, and wrote songs. Elvis went to KDAV to sing live and record the Clover's "Fool, Fool Fool" and Big Joe Turner's "Shake Rattle and Roll" on acetates. This radio station in now KRFE, 580 a.m., located at 66th and MLK, owned by Wade Wilkes. They welcome visitors. It has to be the only place that Elvis, Buddy, Waylon, and Bill Mack all recorded. Johnny Cash sang live there. Waylon and Buddy became great friends through radio. Ben Hall, another KDAV disc jockey and songwriter, filmed in color at the Fair Park Coliseum. This video shows Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Elvis, Buddy and his friends.
Wade's dad, Big Ed Wilkes, owner of KDAV, managed country comedian, Jerry Clower, on MCA Records. He sent Joe Ely's demo tape to MCA. Bob Livingston also sent one of the tapes I gave him to MCA. This led to a contract. Pappy Dave Stone, the first owner of KDAV, helped Buddy get his record contract with Decca/MCA.
Another disc jockey at KDAV was Arlie Duff. He wrote the country classic, "Y'all Come." It has been recorded by nineteen well-known artists, including Bing Crosby. When Waylon Jennings and Don Bowman were hired by the Corbin brothers, Slim, Sky, and Larry, of KLLL, Buddy started to hang around there. They all did jingles, sang live, wrote songs, and recorded. Niki Sullivan, one of the original Crickets, was also a singing DJ at KLLL. Sky Corbin has an excellent book about this radio era and the intense competition between KLLL and KDAV. All the DJs had mottos. Sky Corbin's was "lover, fighter, wild horse rider, and a purty fair windmill man."
Don Bowman's motto was "come a foggin' cowboy." He'd make fun of the sponsors and get fired. We played poker together. He'd take breaks in the poker game to sing funny songs. I played poker with Buddy Holly before and after he got famous. He was incredibly polite and never had the big head. The nation only knew Buddy Holly for less than two years. He was the most famous guy around Lubbock from the age of fourteen.
Niki Sullivan, an original Cricket, and I had a singing duo as children. We cut little acetates in 1948. We also appeared several times on Bob Nash's kid talent show on KFYO. This was at the Tech Theatre. Buddy Holly and Charlene Hancock, Tommy's wife, also appeared on this show. Larry Holley, Buddy's brother, financed his early career, buying him a guitar and whatever else he needed. Buddy recorded twenty acetates at KDAV from 1953 until 1957. He also did a lot of recording at KLLL. Larry Holley said Niki was the most talented Cricket except Buddy. All of Buddy's band mates and all of Joe Ely's band mates were musicians as children.
Buddy and Elvis met at the Cotton Club. Buddy taught Elvis the lyrics to the Drifter's "Money Honey". After that, Buddy met Elvis on each of his Lubbock visits. I think Elvis went to the Cotton Club on every Lubbock appearance. When Elvis played a show at the Johnson Connelly Pontiac showroom, Mac Davis was there. I was too.
The last time Elvis played the Fair Park Coliseum on April 10,1956, he was as famous as it gets. Buddy Holly, Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison, and Don Guess were a front act. They did two shows and played for over 10,000 people. Those wonderful I.G. Holmes photos, taken at several locations, usually show Buddy and his pals with Elvis. Lubbock had a population of 80,000 at the time. Elvis was still signing everything put in front of him. Not many people could have signing women as a hobby.
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Many of the acetates recorded at KLLL and KDAV by Buddy and others were later released, many as bootlegs. When Buddy Holly recorded four songs at KDAV, the demo got him his first record contract. It wasn't just Lubbock radio that so supportive of Buddy Holly. The City of Lubbock hired him to play at teenage dances. He appeared at Lubbock High School assemblies and many other places in town.
Everyone in Lubbock cheered Buddy Holly on with his career. The newspaper reports were always positive. At one teenage gig, maybe at the Glassarama, there was only a small crowd. Some of us were doing the "dirty bop." The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal had photos the next day showing people with their eyes covered with a black strip. Sonny Curtis mentions that in his song, "The Real Buddy Holly Story." When Buddy Holly and the Crickets were on the Ed Sullivan show, the newspaper featured that. The whole town watched.
Buddy was fighting with his manager Norman Petty over money before he died. They were totally estranged. Larry Holley told me that Norman said to Buddy, "I'll see you dead before you get a penny." A few weeks later, Buddy was dead. When Buddy Holly died in a plane crash, it was headline news in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Over 1000 people attended the funeral on February 7, 1959. Buddy was only twenty-two years old. His widow, Maria Elena Holly, was too upset to attend. The pall bearers were all songwriters and musicians that had played with Buddy: Niki Sullivan, Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin, Sonny Curtis, Bob Montgomery, and Phil Everly. Elvis was in the Army. He had Colonel Tom send a large wreath of yellow roses.
In 1976, I was managing the Joe Ely Band. They had recorded an as-yet -to-be-released album for MCA Records. I was in Nashville to meet with the MCA execs. They wanted Joe to get a booking contract and mentioned some unheard of two-man shops. Bob Neal, Elvis' first manager, had great success in talent managing and booking. He sold his agency to the William Morris Agency, the biggest booking agency in the world, and stayed on as president of the Nashville branch.
I called the William Morris Agency and explained to the secretary that I did indeed know Bob Neal, as we had met at the Cotton Club in Lubbock, Texas when he was Elvis' manager. He came right on the phone. I told him the Joe Ely Band played mostly the Cotton Club. He said that after loading up to leave there one night, a cowboy called Elvis over to his car and knocked him down. Elvis was in a rage. He made them drive all over Lubbock checking every open place, as they looked for the guy. Bob Neal invited me to come right over.
Bob Neal played that, now classic, demo tape from Caldwell Studios and offered a booking contract. We agreed on a big music city strategy: Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, London, and Austin. Bob drove me back to MCA and they could not believe our good fortune. The man had been instrumental in the careers of Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Johnny Rodriguez, and many others. The William Morris Agency sent the Joe Ely Band coast to coast and to Europe, first to front Merle Haggard, then on a second trip to front the Clash. The original Joe Ely Band were Lloyd Maines, Natalie's father, steel guitar, Jesse Taylor, electric guitar, Steve Keeton, drums, and Gregg Wright, bass. Ponty Bone, on accordion, joined a little later. The band did the shows and the recording. The recorded tunes were originals from Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
However, some of the William Morris bookings led to zig zag travel over long distances to so-called listening clubs. When I complained to Bob Neal, he'd recall the 300 dates Elvis played back in 1955. Four guys in Elvis' pink Cadillac. When Buddy made some money, he bought a pink Cadillac. Joe Ely bought a pristine, 1957 pink Cadillac that was much nicer than either of their pink Cadillacs.
When I'd hear from Bob Neal, it was very good news, especially the fantastic, uniformly-rave, album and performance reviews from newspapers and magazines everywhere. Time Magazine devoted a full page to Joe Ely. The earliest big rock critic to praise Joe Ely was Joe Nick Patoski, author of the definitive and critically-acclaimed Willie Nelson: An Epic Life. After one year, MCA was in turmoil. Big stars were leaving or filing lawsuits. We were told they might not re-new the option to make a second record. MCA regularly fired everyone we liked. Bob Neal thought the band should go to Los Angeles for a one-nighter.
He booked the Joe Ely Band into the best known club on the West Coast, the Palomino, owned by his dear pal, Tommy Thomas. We alerted other record companies. They drove back and forth to L.A. in a Dodge Van to play only one night. Robert Hilburn, the top rock critic for the Los Angeles Times, came with his date, Linda Ronstadt.
The Joe Ely Band loved to play music. They started on time, took short breaks, and played until someone made them stop. Robert Hilburn wrote that Ely could be, "the most important male singer to emerge in country music since the mid-60s crop of Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, and Willie Nelson." The long review with pictures took up the whole fine arts section of the biggest newspaper in the country. Hilburn praised each of the band individually. He was blown away when they just kept playing when the lights came on at closing time. After that, several major record companies were interested.
The last time I saw Bob Neal was at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco on February 22, 1979. Little Pete, a black drarf who was always around Stubb's Bar-B-Q, was traveling with the band. To open the show, Little Pete came out and announced, "Lubbock, Texas produces the Joe Ely Band!" Then he jumped off the elevated stage and Bo Billingsley, the giant roady, caught him. Bob Neal, the old showman that had seen it all, just loved that.
www.JohnnyHughes.com
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Well, a lot of books have come out about Elvis' true reputation at a time when he was no longer around to refute any of it. I think a lot of these stories- including Priscilla's are pure fiction and sell lots of books. I don't mean to put down what you did but I'm entitled to my opinion.
This all detracts from my subject which was not about Elvis- if you take the time to read it but about Janis Martin and WOMEN in ROCK.
Hope you take the time to read it. The moniker "The Female Elvis" was more about selling records and concert dates than a straight across equivalent.
Evelyn Wallace
author of
"Seasons of the Heart"
and "Robinson and Crawford County"
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