Asa Martin

Asa Martin (born June 28, 1900 in Winchester , Kentucky , † August 15, 1979 in Kentucky) was an American old-time musician . Martin was guitarist for Fiddlin 'Doc Roberts between 1927 and 1934 and then appeared mostly on the radio.

Life

Childhood and youth

Asa Martin was born into a musical family in Clark County in 1900 ; his mother was a piano teacher and played guitar , his father was a fiddler . Musically he was also influenced by the traditional music of the vaudeville and minstrel shows. Due to the poor financial situation, Martin decided around 1920 to drop out of school and instead become a musician.

Career

Martin joined various vaudeville shows where he learned to play guitar, performed with various bands and mainly worked as a background musician in silent movie theaters. With the invention of the sound film, Martin saw the decline in engagements and looked for a different job as a musician.

At that time he met the Fiddler Doc Roberts at a Fiddlers' Contest in Winchester. Shortly afterwards, Martin began to perform with Roberts and in 1928 the first recording session for Gennett Records followed . In addition to the songs he shared with Roberts, Martin also played solo pieces time and again - mostly parodies like The Virginia Bootlegger or There's No Place Like Home (For a Married Man) . During those years, Roberts and Martin were two of the most successful old-time artists for Gennett. When Roberts' son James joined the band as the second singer, Martin's repertoire changed in the direction of traditional ballads such as Knoxville Girl or Give My Love to Nell . Until 1934 Martin played with Doc and James Roberts for Gennett and the American Record Corporation a further records.

After the trio broke up in 1934, Martin took on the morning radio show Morning Roundup on WLAP in Lexington , Kentucky. He was also heard on other stations in Kentucky and on WLW from Cincinnati , Ohio , played with his own band, the Kentucky Hillbillies, and traveled the country. He had never been able to fully exercise this activity during his partnership with Roberts, as Roberts limited his area of ​​activity to Kentucky. Martin is also seen as the discoverer of the banjo player David "Stringbean" Akeman ; In 1935 he hired the young musician and gave him the nickname "String Beans" during a concert, as he had forgotten Akeman's real name.

In 1938 he played a few more songs for Decca Records .

retreat

When the USA entered World War II , Martin retired from the music business and worked in an ammunition factory in Middletown , Ohio. In the 1950s, Martin moved to Irving , Kentucky, where he bought land away from the city. After his retirement in 1965, he started performing again with his new band, the Cumberland Rangers , and played the album Dr. Ginger Blue one. In 1968 he was interviewed by music journalists Norm Cohen and Archie Green and the two also organized one final concert with Martin, Doc Roberts and James Roberts.

Asa Martin died in 1979 at the age of 79.

Discography

Singles

Discography is not exhaustive.

year	title	#	Remarks
Conqueror Records
	I Tickled Her Under the Chin / She Ain't Built that Way	8012
	Quit Hanging Round, Baby / Roadside Drifter	9242
Vocalion Records
	Low and Blue / Jenny Barn Bound	4529
	Chums for Fifty Years / Red River Valley Rose	4569
	Way Down on the Farm / I'll Be There a Long, Long Time	4673
	Roadside Drifter / Quit Hangin 'Around, baby	4759
	Knock Kneed Susie Jane / Hot Sausage Mama	4827
	Harlan Town Tragedy / Lonesome, Broke and Weary	4894

Albums

• 19 ??: Asa Martin (Rounder)
• 1974: Dr. Ginger Blue (Rounder)

literature

• Charles K. Wolfe: Kentucky Country: Folk and Country Music of Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky, 1982, ISBN 0-8131-1468-3 , pp. 30-32.

Web links

• Entry on Allmusic
• Asa Martin on Hillbilly-Music.com (English)