Sara Martin
b. 18 June 1884, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, d. 24 May 1955, Louisville, Kentucky, USA. A melodious but rather inflexible singer, Martin appears nevertheless to have been a popular success, recording over 120 tracks for OKeh between 1923 and 1928. These include the first recorded blues with guitar accompaniment (by Sylvester Weaver), and the first with a jug band (that of Clifford Hayes, billed as Sara Martin's Jug Band). Although Chicago-based, Martin maintained close connections with Louisville, from where Hayes and Weaver also originated. She worked in vaudeville from 1915-31, thereafter devoting herself to the church and to running a nursing home in Louisville from the '40s until her death.