Carolyn Martin is a native Texan who has lived in Nashville for many years. She began singing professionally while living in Abilene, and began traveling and performing throughout Texas and the rest of the US a few years later. Carolyn has performed at corporate events and conventions in addition to singing at fairs, festivals, nightclubs, honkytonks, society balls, dance halls, supermarket openings, weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, and at least one children’s party. She’s has toured Europe, performing her own music in addition to singing and playing with other artists. She’s sung in living rooms, tents, arenas, churche sand concert halls, and on buses, boats, trains, and airplanes.
Carolyn’s repertoire is wide ranging; though she’s comfortable with everything from classic R&B to contemporary country, from the hits of the Disco era to 1960's folk songs, Carolyn's recent recordings have been exploring the hits of the Golden Age of Songwriting – that is, the classic standards of the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. "The Very Thought Of You", Carolyn's 2005 release, explored this territory while and her new CD, "Swing", moves Carolyn into the wide open fields of Western Swing.
The Time Jumpers, a western swing band made up of Nashville session musicians gave Carolyn the opportunity to explore the standards repertoire more deeply when they invited her to join the group in 2000. Though it may seem a little odd that a Western Swing band (which is generally considered to be a kind of country music) would pique Carolyn’s interest in old jazz tunes, more than one knowledgeable observer has pointed out that Western Swing is ‘really big band jazz with fiddles instead of horns’. After a few years of years singing every Monday night with The Time Jumpers, Carolyn was inspired to do an album that reflected her love of the standard repertoire; the result is “The Very Thought Of You”, her first recording for Cuppa Joe Records.
Carolyn had been singing standards for years but gave her the opportunty to explore that genre in more detail; “Instead of simply doing an album of material that I already knew, I wanted to be in love with every single song we recorded.” Carolyn listened to thousands of songs both – classic and new – before choosing the material that makes up “The Very Thought Of You”. That project includes classic ballads as well as little known gems from the standards repertoire, and also includes two new songs; “Little Bird”, by Dave Powelson and “Something Is The Matter With The Moon”, a lovely ballad written by Nashville songwriter Joel Keller.
Her latest project, titled "Swing", adds fiddles, steel guitars and accordions to create a collection of classic and contemporary western swing tunes, and features guest vocal performances by John England (of Nashville's Western Swingers) and Ranger Doug Green from Riders In The Sky.
