The Peculiar Truth about the 1st Black Woman in Country Music

• In 2024, Beyonce released Cowboy Carter. Although there’s some debate over whether or not it was a country music record, the album made it to number one on Billboard’s Country Charts. However, Beyonce was not the first African American woman to achieve a country music hit.

• That distinction belongs to Linda Martell. In 1970, her song Color Him Father reached #22 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles, and she went on to become the first black woman to appear at the Grand Ole Opry.

• Country music can trace its roots to rural Southern regions of the United States, and the genre was almost exclusively the domain of the white working class. Few African Americans became country stars in the early days. For any black person to cross that unspoken color barrier, especially at a time and place of racial disparity, was not only novel but courageous. That was especially true of a black woman like Linda Martell.

• She was born Thelma Bynem in rural South Carolina in 1941. Thelma cooked and cleaned the family home at age seven while her parents worked; her father was a sharecropper and her mother worked at a chicken slaughterhouse. Thelma grew up listening to country performers on the radio, including the ever-popular Hank Williams.

• In the early 60s, Thelma created a girl-group trio with a sister and a cousin. They received an opportunity to record a pop tune. But the group’s new manager didn’t like the name Thelma Bynem. He changed her name to Linda Martell. Her girl group recorded A Little Tear (Was Falling from My Eyes). It fizzled and disappeared.

• Linda Martell became a solo act after that and performed in her native South Carolina. After seeing her show at the Charleston Air Force Base, a promoter suggested she try country music like Charley Pride, the black male country artist. At first, Linda was reluctant, but she eventually got invited to record in Nashville.

• 1970: Color Me Country, her first and only album, was recorded in one day with studio musicians. The session lasted about twelve hours. The track Color Him Father was released as a single and climbed the charts.

• Linda went on tour as an opening act for country music legends like Hank Snow and Waylon Jennings. She appeared on Hee Haw, the syndicated television show that featured country music performers. She was onstage at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry a dozen times.

• When performing on the road elsewhere in the rural South, however, racial epithets were hurled at her. White audiences were openly hostile, and Linda grew intimidated.

• Linda’s album was released on Plantation Records, which she found offensive. After voicing her disapproval to the producer, she cut ties with him. No one else would sign her. She was frozen out of the Nashville scene.

• As quickly as she appeared, Linda Martell vanished into obscurity. Even her only album became hard to find.

• She moved around the US during the ensuing decades, working various jobs and singing with live bands. She reverted to her real name, Thelma, and taught school.

• Beyonce found Linda Martell and had her sing on two Cowboy Carter tracks: The Linda Martell Show and Spaghetti.

• That sent journalists out to search for the titular woman. They found Thelma Bynem, aka Linda Martell, where she had always been in South Carolina, now in her 80s and finally getting the attention she is due.