Color Me Country (Sun Records 70th / Remastered 2022)

Album review

Linda Martell was the first black female artist to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, in 1969, going on to play the show a dozen times (and, inevitably, prompting comparisons as "the female Charley Pride"). Artists like Waylon Jennings and Hank Snow took her out on the road—but audiences weren’t as open-minded, hurling racist slurs at the stage. "You're gonna run into hecklers, and I did . . . You felt pretty awful," Martell once told Rolling Stone. That, combined with a wave of business troubles, led to her giving up on Nashville. She worked as a cruise-ship entertainer and eventually moved home to South Carolina, where she took a job as a bus driver. In recent years, though, there’s been a rediscovery of Martell’s work and all she did to pave the way for others. Artists including Darius Rucker, Carrie Underwood and Mickey Guyton—who has cited Martell as an inspiration—honored her at the 2021 CMT Music Awards, and a documentary is being made about her life. This remastered reissue of her one and only album, 1970’s Color Me Country, offers brand-new clarity for Martell's honey-rich voice, but it also paints a heartbreaking portrait of what could've been. She sounds invitingly warm and glowing on tracks like the swooning ballad "Then I'll Be Over You" and Dionne Warwick-esque "San Francisco Is a Lonely Town," which showcases Martell's lovely vibrato. "Bad Case of the Blues" is a hoot—with its unmistakable late '60s vibe of  hillbilly fiddle, jug-band bass, and blinding steel complimenting Martell's countrypolitan twang and gossamer-fine yodel. She goes honky-tonk on the title track and stands strong for "You're Crying Boy, Crying," a Wanda Jackson-style barnburner. A moving, countrified cover of The Winstons' shimmering "Color Him Father" finds Martell as a kid singing an ode to her stepfather after her "real old man" was killed in the war. The highlight, of course, is her cover of "Before the Next Teardrop Falls," which would be a hit for Tejano star Freddy Fender in 1974. Simply put, Martell sounds as bright as the sun. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz