Sara Martin: The Famous Moanin’ Mama

Louisville-born blues singer Sara Martin (Sara Dunn, 1884-1955) started out on the black vaudeville circuits sometime prior to 1915. Advertised as “The Colored Sophie Tucker” or “The Famous Moanin’ Mama”, she began to record for Okeh Records in 1922, with such major artists as Fats Waller, King Oliver,Clarence Williams and Sylvester Weaver, and was one of the first singers, if not the first, to record “T’Aint Nobody’s Business If I Do.” She occasionally recorded under the pseudonyms “Margaret Johnson” or “Sally Roberts”. In 1929 she co-starred with Bill Robinson in a film short called Hello, Bill, and the following year she toured with a revue called Darktown Scandals, produced by Irvin C. Miller. In the early ’30s she performed with the Father of Gospel Music, Thomas A. Dorsey. Martin had an oddly legit singing style, oddly at variance with many blues singers of her generation. She had a lot of crossover potential one might think, but the ’30s hit live performing and the recording industry hard. By the middle of the decade, she had retired and was working in a nursing home.

To learn more about vaudeville, please see No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.