This site is ran by Janis' grandaughter Lindsey.
It saddens me to tell you all this, Janis died September 3rd, 2007 from terminal cancer. She wanted to let you all know that she loves each and every one of you. Wayne requested I post the address at which you can send cards/flowers... Janis Martin and Wayne Whitt 2217 Mount View Rd. Danville, VA 24540
Janis Martin was born in Sutherlin, Virginia on March 27th, 1940. Her mother, Jewel, was a stage mother, and her father and uncle were both musicians, who practiced in hopes of gaining a professional career in the music industry. It was not surprising that Janis soon began becoming interested in music also. When she was four, she began playing guitar by balancing it upright because it was too big for her to hold. Before she was six years old, Janis was already singing and playing the guitar, and credited her influences from the country music singers Eddy Arnold and Hank Williams. She was soon a fixture in talent shows and other contests, and won most of them. She soon started appearing on a local radio show WDVA Barndance in Virginia at the young age of 11. When she was in her mid-teens, she started appearing alongside other Country singers, like Ernest Tubb, Sonny James, and Jean Shepard. Her experience at such a young age brought Martin to performing rock & roll. Martin claimed she was getting tired or singing and performing Country music.According to some people, Janis' timing in the music business was perfect. She started singing R&B music, and started sending demos to various record companies. At only age 15, Martin was signed to her first record company, RCA Records. This was only two months after Elvis Presley signed on with them.In 1956, Martin released her debut record under RCA, called "Will You Willyum", backed by her own composition, "Drugstore Rock'n Roll". The song, became the biggest hit of her career, and the record sold 750,000 copies. The song was not just a pop/rock & roll hit, but also a Country hit. Most rock & roll artists at the time had their singles become hits on the Country charts as well as the Pop charts. Soon, Martin was performing on America's most well-known shows, like American Bandstand, The Today Show, and the Tonight Show. She also appeared on Country music's Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, becoming one of the youngest performers to ever appear there. She was awared by Billboard Most Promising Female Vocalist that year.Elvis Presley and RCA records were so impressed with Janis' delivery of a song on stage, she was given the nickname The Female Elvis, which stuck with her the rest of her career. Presley in fact sent his wishes and a dozen red roses to Janis when she appeared in Miami, Florida, when she appeared at the RCA Records convention down there to be introduced to other RCA officials around the country and the world. She was chosen by her record company to tour as a member of the Jim Reeves show and tour with the Country singer exclusively.Janis continued recording straight-up rock & roll, as well as Country material, that ended up being successful on both charts, like the songs "My Boy Elvis", "Let's Elope Baby", "Oooby Dooby", and "Love Me to Pieces", along with "Will You Willyum", which was a Top 40 Pop hit. Janis rose to fame at a very young age, and she would have been able to sustain a successful rock & roll career which many of her contemporaries were able to keep at the time. Her stage moves and delivery seemed very unseemly to many people(especially in the Country music scene, where few women took a stand and sung Country music at the time) . Also, Janis was usually booked on Country shows, and most Country fans weren't overly thrilled by Janis' rock & roll stage moves, like most rock & roll performers at the time. She was often caught between whether to sing Country or rock & roll."At the time I was recording 'Let's Elope, Baby,' " she later said, "my parents didn't even know I was married."She had eloped at 15 with her childhood sweetheart, Tommy Cundiff, who was in the Army. On a USO tour in Europe in 1957, Ms. Martin had a rendezvous with her husband and became pregnant. She recorded her final songs for RCA when she was 17 and in her eighth month of pregnancy.She divorced her husband, settled in Danville to raise her son, then married and divorced a second husband, Ken Parton. Martin briefly returned to the recording studio for a Belgian label, Palette, in 1960, but by then rockabilly was declining in popularity and her second husband disapproved of her career. Janis then returned to music, encouraged by Atkins, who told her that a rockabilly revival was on its way.That revival was strongest in Europe, and from 1979 Martin and other 50s veterans, such as Sonny Burgess and Mac Curtis, performed there frequently. British rockabilly fans were among the most committed, and when Martin played her first concert in England - on her 42nd birthday - she found it was like stepping back in time. "Those kids dressed like we did in the 1950s," she said. The German record company Bear Family reissued all her RCA tracks on two LPs in 1979 and subsequently on CD.Supported by her husband, Wayne Whitt, and championed by singer Rosie Flores, Janis eventually made a triumphant comeback in America. She duetted on Flores' 1996 album Rockabilly Filly and had recently completed her own album, co-produced by Flores. She Found out she had cancer shortly after what turned out to be her last public performance — a cancer benefit in Richmond in March where she was backed by band out of Richmond called Hamburger James. She had been due to appear at the Americana international festival in Newark, Nottinghamshire, last July, but had to cancel due to her worsening health, which friends believed was brought on by the death of her son, Kevin, in January. Janis died Monday, September 3rd, 2007 of cancer at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North CarolinaJanis left behind her husband, Wayne, of 28 years, her sister Geraldine, and her mother, Jewel. Also a step-son, Wayne Jr., her daughter-in-law, Debby, a granddaughter, Lindsey, and great-grandaughter, Kaylee.