Benny Martin
Pioneering bluegrass fiddler from Tennessee who introduced the 8-string fiddle.
Born in Sparta, Tennessee, his father and two of his sisters played music professionally. From childhood, he learned the fiddle taught to him by Carl Alverson, Sr., of Sparta and ukulele, as well as the guitar and in his early teens left home to go to Nashville to pursue a full-time career as a country musician.
Martin was working at radio station WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee in 1948 when he was asked to replace Bill Monroe's fiddler Chubby Wise who was going to leave the Bluegrass Boys. In 1949, he became a member of Reno & Smiley's Tennessee Cutups. For the next seventeen years, until December 1966, Don Reno and Martin performed on and off together. In 1952, he joined Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys cutting eight songs. On these recordings he played with a bluesy and jazzy flavour that complemented Scruggs' playing. He returned to Monroe's Bluegrass Boys in 1959 but left within a year. In the 1960s, he toured with Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys.
Martin was a member of Grand Ole Opry and had his own show, The Benny Martin Show. Over the years, Martin performed and recorded with many different artists such as the Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, Johnnie and Jack, and the Stonemans. He recorded at least four singles one for Gulf Reef, "Thinking About Love" and "The Man Next Door" and three for Starday "Hello City Limits" "I'll Never Get Over Loving You", "Pretty Girl" "Dimes Worth of Dreams"and "You are the One" with his wife Joanne "No One But You." He hired Colonel Tom Parker as his manager and eventually would work as the opening act for some of the early Elvis Presley concerts.
Benny Martin died in 2001 and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.
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