Janis Darlene Martin (March 27, 1940 – September 3, 2007) was an American rockabilly and country music singer. She was one of the few women working in the male-dominated rock and roll music field during the 1950s and one of country music's early female innovators.
Martin was born in Sutherlin, Virginia, east of Danville. Her mother was a stage mother, and her father and uncle were both musicians. Before she was six, Martin was already singing and playing the guitar, inspired by Eddy Arnold and Hank Williams. Over the years, this resulted in statewide contests with over 200 contestants, which she won. As a result, Janis was asked to play on the same bill as Cowboy Copas and Sunshine Sue. Through them Martin became a member of the Old Dominion Barndance on WRVA, which came out of Richmond every Saturday Night on CBS network. When she was in her mid-teens, she was appearing with country singers including Arnold, Hank Snow, The Browns and Jim Reeves. She soon claimed she was tired of country music and began a rock and roll career.
The WRVA station announcer, Carl Stutz, wrote a song titled "Will You Willyum", and asked Martin to sing the song live on stage that Saturday night so that he could make a demo tape to send to his publisher in New York. A week later, Stutz called Martin to tell her that RCA Victor was interested in recording "Will You Willyum". As it happened, the publisher offered "Will You Willyum" to Steve Sholes, a producer at RCA Victor, and asked whether Sholes had an artist to record it. Apparently Sholes replied "Well, who's the girl doin' the demo?" At age 15, Martin signed with RCA Victor in March 1956, just two months after Elvis Presley joined the label. She recorded "Will You Willyum" on March 8, 1956, backed by her own composition "Drugstore Rock 'n Roll". The song became the biggest hit of her career, selling 750,000 records. Soon Martin was performing on American Bandstand, The Today Show and Tonight Starring Steve Allen. She also appeared on Jubilee USA, and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, becoming one of the younger performers to ever appear. Billboard named her Most Promising Female Vocalist that year.
RCA chose Martin to tour as a member of the Jim Reeves show and continued recording rock and roll and country material that ended up being successful on both charts, including "My Boy Elvis", "Let's Elope Baby", her cover of Roy Orbison's song "Ooby Dooby", and "Love Me to Pieces".
In the 1960s she left the music business but in the 1970s, she began performing again with her newly formed band, The Variations. In 1975, she was working for the Halifax, Virginia, Police Department when music historian, Dennis West, tracked her down. Edd Bayes, a record collector from Maryland, asked Dennis for her address, which Dennis gave to him. He then coaxed her to appear locally and tell her story in Goldmine magazine. Martin toured through Europe as part of the rockabilly revival there, and in 1979 Bayes convinced RCA to pull four Martin songs from their vault, which were then released on Dog Gone Records in 1977. Edd Bayes took one of the songs that had been recorded twice ("Love Me Love") at different tempos and added the 'cha cha' to the title. In the 1980s, the Bear Family label gathered Martin's complete record history with the compilation album The Female Elvis. Since the early 1980s Janis started performing again at Rockabilly shows through Europe and the US. One of her live shows was released on a CD called Here I Am on Hydra Records. In 1995, Martin appeared on Rosie Flores's Rockabilly Filly album for HighTone Records. Flores recorded an album with Martin six months before her death, but it was not released until September 18, 2012, as The Blanco Sessions by Cow Island Music.
Martin died from cancer on September 3, 2007 at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.
