Trevon Dawson, Apr 6, 2017
The Roberta Martin Singers do a rare Interview at the Smithsonian Institute
Eugene Smith & Others remember and tell the story of The Martin Singers
Recorded at "The Roberta Martin Singers Gospel Music Conference"
Piano: Richard Smallwood Organ: Charles Pikes
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Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series about the Roberta Martin Singers.
This post presents an excerpt of an interview of some members of the Roberta Martin Singers by representatives of the Smithsonian Institute.
This post also presents some excerpts of online articles about the influence of Roberta Martin and The Roberta Martin Singers on African American Gospel Music.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2023/07/seven-gospel-songs-performed-by-roberta.html for a pancocojams post that showcases seven YouTube videos of songs that are performed by The Roberta Martin Singers.
The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, religious, and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Roberta Martin and The Roberta Martin Singers for their musical legacy. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.
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Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/06/roberta-martin-singers-walk-in-jerusalem.html for the 2013 pancocojams post entitled "Roberta Martin Singers - Walk In Jerusalem
Click the tags below for other pancocojams posts that feature The Roberta Martin Singers.
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EXCERPTS ABOUT ROBERTA MARTIN AND THE ROBERTA MARTIN SINGERS
These excerpts are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.
EXCERPT #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberta_Martin
"Roberta Evelyn Martin (February 12, 1907 – January 18, 1969)
was an American gospel composer, singer, pianist, arranger and choral
organizer, helped launch the careers of many other gospel artists through her
group, The Roberta Martin Singers.[1]
[…]
Martin complemented her group's performance with her piano
accompaniment, which often dictated the rhythm and pace of the song or
commented on it by responding to or accenting a singer's performance. Martin's
piano style reflected the influence of Holiness artists such as Arizona Dranes
and her classical training.
The other musical signature of the Roberta Martin Singers was the accompaniment of "Little" Lucy Smith on the Hammond organ. Her droning introductory chord and unique "passes" using the bass pedals set the tone for a meditative experience and became a recognized trademark of a "Roberta Martin gospel song".
Death and legacy
Roberta Martin died of cancer on January 18, 1969, at the
age of 61, at Mercy Hospital, Chicago. Her funeral attracted over 50,000
mourners.
During her lifetime, she had composed about seventy songs,
arranged and published 280 gospel songs, and reached and inspired thousands of
listeners selling sheet music. Her compositions include "He Knows Just How
Much We Can Bear," and "God Is Still on the Throne" (1959),
"Let It Be" (1950), and "Just Jesus and Me" (1966). Martin
earned six Gold records.[4]
The Roberta Martin Singers sang at Gian-Carlo Menotti's
Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, in 1963. She helped develop a
distinctive gospel-piano style which had a special sound that integrated, for
the first time, men and women into the gospel chorus during the mid-1940s.[5]
On July 15, 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a
32 cent commemorative stamp honoring Martin's influence. The stamp was one of
four honoring gospel women. The other women honored were Mahalia Jackson, Clara
Ward, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe."
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EXCERPT #2
From https://www.malaco.com/artists/gospel/roberta-martin-singers/#:~:text=And%20in%20The%20Cambridge%20Companion,she%20developed%20a%20series%20of Roberta Martin Singers
"Singer, pianist, songwriter, arranger and music publishing
entrepreneur Roberta Martin was one of the most innovative and influential
figures in the history of gospel music. A direct disciple of pioneering gospel
tunesmith Thomas A. Dorsey, she formed her own singing group, originally known
as the Martin and Frye Quartette, in 1933. As the Roberta Martin Singers, they
remained active until shortly before her death in 1969 at age 61.
The Roberta Martin Singers “gave gospel its signature ensemble sound,” Robert M. Marovich stated in his book A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music.
In The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times, Anthony Heilbut wrote that “Roberta’s contralto was refined and subdued, eschewing its greatest effects though timing and phrasing.”
And in The Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music, Adrian York wrote, “Roberta brought elements of a Western classical sensibility to gospel both though her piano playing, which is characterized by both a lightness of touch and richness of tone, and her harmonic knowledge through which she developed a series of chord substitutions and harmonic cadences that are still part of the gospel sound today.”
Herself influenced by the blind Pentecostal pianist Arizona Dranes, Martin mentored future gospel stars James Cleveland and Alex Bradford. Cleveland, in turn, coached young Aretha Franklin, while Bradford affected Ray Charles’ approach to the piano.
Roberta Evelyn Martin was born in Helena, Arkansas, on February 12, 1907, and ten years later moved to Chicago with her family. She began piano lessons at age six and learned choir directing from Mildred Bryant Jones at Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago. Jones inspired Martin to attend Northwestern University, where she continued her piano studies with hopes of becoming a classical concert pianist. Instead, she became accompanist, in 1932, for Thomas A. Dorsey and Theodore Frye’s youth choir at the city’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. She and Frye formed their smaller group a year later, its members including choir singers Robert Anderson, then 14; Willie Webb, also 14; James Lawrence, 13; Eugene Smith, 12; and Norsalus McKissick, 10. Smith and McKissick remained with the Roberta Martin Singers, as they became known in 1935, into the 1960s.
In 1939, Bessie Folk became the first women to join the
group. She was followed in the 1940s by singers Delois Barrett and Sadie Durrah
and organist and sometime vocalist Lucy Smith. Each vocalist took turns singing
leads, establishing a cooperative pattern that would soon be followed by such
groups as the Ward Singers, Davis Sisters and Caravans.”…
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EXCERPT #3
From https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/martin-roberta
"Roberta Martin; 1907–1969
In the liner notes to the 1979 album The Best of the Roberta Martin Singers, gospel music historian Clayton Hannah wrote, "Although Thomas A. Dorsey is credited as the originator of gospel music, and Mahalia Jackson received the highest acclaim, Roberta Martin unequivocally made the greatest contribution. She created and left a dynasty of gospel singers and a portfolio of unduplicated gospel music." Indeed, the sound Martin created defined an entire era in the story of gospel, and profoundly influenced the musicians who have carried the gospel torch into its more recent day.
In 1931 Martin was hired as accompanist for the Young People's Choir of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where she worked under the guidance of Thomas A. Dorsey and Theodore Frye. Dorsey and Frye would go on to become mentors of a sort to Martin, helping establish her as a leading practitioner of gospel in the early phase of her career. She had still never heard gospel music up to this time; her work at the church consisted of traditional hymns and spirituals, religious choral music, and secular songs. In 1933 Martin finally heard gospel music for the first time when gospel pioneer Bertha Wise and her group came to perform at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. It proved to be a life changing experience. Dorsey and Frye, who were as impressed as Martin was by the Wise ensemble's performance, convinced Martin that gospel was the way to go for music in church, and later that year the Martin-Frye Quartet was formed. The group, an all-male vocal ensemble, originally consisted of Eugene Smith, Robert Anderson, Willie Webb, and Norsalus McKissick, with Martin accompanying them on piano and contributing the occasional vocal solo. Other early members included James Lawrence and Romance Watson. The Quartet was renamed the Roberta Martin Singers in 1936.
In 1939 Martin became a businessperson, launching the Roberta Martin Studio of Music. One of the Studio's primary functions was as publisher of Martin's original compositions, and it soon became one of the largest publishers of gospel music in Chicago. Over the next several years, Martin and her ensemble essentially defined the sound we now know as "gospel." In the mid-1940s, Martin changed the formula by adding women to the group, the first being Bessie Folk and Delois Barrett Campbell, becoming the first prominent small gospel ensemble to include both male and female voices. By creating a mixed-gender group, Martin forged a distinct sound that successfully melded the ranges and textures of male and female voices. They were able to produce more complex and subtle harmonies than gospel audiences were accustomed to hearing in the past. This effect was further supported by Martin's piano prowess, which because of her advanced classical piano training was more sophisticated than the accompaniment behind most gospel groups.
Established Classic Gospel Sound in 1940s
The sound created by the Roberta Martin Singers stood out in
other ways as well. Author Anthony Heilbut, in his liner notes for a 1973
Martin album, described the sound as combining "the Baptist moan of her
Arkansas childhood with the Dorsey bounce, the sanctified church's syncopation,
and a smidgeon of semiclassical pretension." This blend gave rise to what
has come to be called classic gospel music. More than a sound, however, Martin
and her group introduced a school, or approach, to religious music that laid
the foundation for the development of a musical genre that was then in its
infancy. The wide range of voices available created opportunities for
innovative voicings and harmonies. Martin taught her singers to sing slightly
behind the beat, creating a subtle "swing" to the timing. She
preached a smooth, nuanced style with varied dynamics and dramatic surges of
power. While her arrangements featured close harmonies that showcased a skilled
blending of voices, Martin was also interested in highlighting the unique
identity of each individual voice, allowing the singers to express themselves
with semi-improvised freedom at times.
These elements were then bound together by Martin's piano accompaniment. Martin essentially invented gospel piano playing; there was no standard gospel piano style or technique before she came along, though gospel scholar Bil Carpenter has written in the on-line All Music Guide that she copied her style from blind pianist Arizona Dranes. The style she pioneered incorporated rhythmic octaves played with the left hand underpinning complex, colorful chord progressions, played in less rigid rhythmic patterns with right. This foundation provided the perfect backdrop for the group's rich vocal harmonies. But rather than merely providing that backdrop, the piano part was integral to the vocals, responding to and interplaying with the melodic lines and vocal counterpoints. The piano also set the mood for the song, with introductory licks, often played while a narrator provided verbal setup.”...
This concludes Part I of this pancocojams series.
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