Hitting the high notes: Charleston native on her way up in music
business
By HUEY FREEMAN H&R Staff Writer
Like thousands before her, Charlotte Martin moved to Los Angeles to
write songs and live off her musical talent.
Unlike most of the other aspiring stars, Martin -- a 26-year-old
singer-songwriter-pianist who grew up in Charleston -- landed a
recording contract with one of the industry giants within a year.
Martin has completed seven songs for her first RCA CD, with four or
five more cuts to go. It is expected to be finished in the spring and
released in the summer.
"I have a great feeling about everything that has been done so far,"
she said. "It's exciting and scary at the same time."
She recently released an EP, "Test Drive Songs," with eight songs,
including a couple of cuts that will also be on her CD. "Test Drive
Songs" can be purchased through her Web site.
Since November, she has been working eight hours a day in the studios
of Clif Magness, a Grammy-winning producer-writer-musician who has
worked with artists such as Barbra Streisand and Cheap Trick, and Ken
Andrews, a musician who has produced two gold records.
Andrews, who recently engineered three of Martin's songs, says she has
a great chance of succeeding in the highly competitive music business.
"She is such an amazing musician and singer," Andrews says. "She pretty
much never sings a wrong note, which makes life in the recording studio
really easy.
"She has a really unique voice. It's very clear. She can hit all the
high notes; it's nice and dramatic. She also has a richness to her
voice that separates her from singers who are more interested in the
gymnastics. There is also a vulnerability that is really engaging as a
listener."
The songs she writes are strong and advanced for someone her age, he
says. "They are focused and tight and succinct."
Andrews, who recently saw her perform, says she connects directly with
audience members in the manner of other great singers.
"She makes you feel like she's singing right to you," he says.
***
Jody Kienzler, Martin's voice teacher from age 7 through 18, says she
was an electric performer with an exceptional musical gift from the
start.
Kienzler recalled the first time she had 7-year-old Charlotte sing
"Jesus Loves You" at Wesley United Methodist Church in Charleston,
where Kienzler was the organist.
"She had the attention of everyone in the audience," says Kienzler, now
the director of six choirs at a Northern California church and grade
school. "Right away she was a real hit. She was born for music."
When Martin was 8, she started taking piano lessons from Kienzler.
"She hated the discipline of reading the music," Kienzler says. "She
would say, 'Would you play it for me?' As soon as I played it, she had
it. She could just go and play it. She didn't have to see the notes
again."
During road trips she took with Charlotte and her mother, who became a
close friend, Charlotte sang a harmonious counterpoint to the part the
two women sang. Kienzler says that kind of ability is rarely seen in
small children.
***
Kienzler says Charlotte also has near-perfect pitch.
"She was so easy to teach," she recalls. "She was wide open, and she
would just suck everything in. I would put my soul into her because she
was so receptive. She was just a sponge."
As Kienzler guided her on her musical journey -- teaching her
everything from hymns to Broadway show tunes to operatic arias -- she
noticed that Charlotte was often frustrated.
"There were times she auditioned for things such as the leads in
musicals and she didn't get the parts. She once dropped out of choir
because she got a C in choir. Because of her great talent, there was
misunderstanding."
Kienzler says Charlotte worked hard to develop her talent. She wrote
hundreds of songs before she moved to Los Angeles. "She remembered them
all lyric for lyric, note for note, without writing them down," she
says.
Martin credits Kienzler, a former adjunct voice professor at Millikin
University, with teaching her how to sing.
"She let me sing the real hard material -- everything from show pieces
to oratorios -- at age 10 and 12," Martin recalls. "She supported me
and encouraged me. She's probably the biggest musical influence of my
life. Her love of music inspired me to love it."
***
Martin swears she is not "going Hollywood."
"If you're in it to become famous, you're going to hit a dead end,"
says Martin, sitting in the student union cafe at Eastern Illinois
University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in vocal performance
four years ago. "I'm in this to make music and keep making music."
Martin was in Charleston recently to visit her parents, Joseph Martin,
a music professor at Eastern, and Becky Martin, an administrator of a
program for developmentally disabled adults.
A blue-eyed blonde with an open, expressive face and hair hanging down
near her waist, Charlotte Martin laughs often as she speaks of her
struggles, triumphs and dreams.
A former Miss Coles County and second-runner up to Miss Illinois in
1997 -- she earned $15,000 in scholarship money, but ended up hating
the pageant scene -- Martin suffered from anorexia during her teen
years. She says that experience showed her the futility of focusing on
her appearance or chasing fame.
"I got way over the way people look and the way I look," she says. When
Martin moved to California in 1999, she says she was "already
weathered."
***
After graduating from Eastern, she moved to Chicago's Lincoln Park,
sleeping on the floor in a friend's apartment and performing in "dingy
bar-type" clubs in Chicago and Milwaukee.
"I hit a dead end in about a year," she says.
Martin devoted her time to recording some of her songs, using free
studio time at DePaul University she obtained through a friend who was
an recording engineering student.
"I got used to recording myself," she says.
After a gig at a Milwaukee cocktail lounge, a man approached Martin,
introducing himself as Neil Diamond's road manager. At first she didn't
believe him, but he produced a business card and later convinced her he
was authentic.
He told Martin he knew an engineer who would love to work with her.
Martin, who is not shy, visited a friend in Los Angeles and then called
the recording engineer.
Bernie Becker, Diamond's engineer for the past 20 years, invited Martin
to his studio, where she played and sang for him.
"He says, 'You're talented. You should move here,' " Martin recalls. He
told her he would work with her and possibly help her land a record
contract.
Martin moved to Los Angeles and recorded some songs in Becker's studio,
where she learned a lot about professional recording. She later landed
her contract with the help of a manager she met when she played a gig
at the House of Blues in West Hollywood.
***
When she arrived in L.A., she saw the music scene as a bit slanted
toward superficial beauty and youth:
"Like, I can see through all you people," she thought. She filled
notebooks with songs on experiences such as falling in love, getting
dumped, "stalking" a man she dated and mourning a close friend who
committed suicide.
Martin says she appreciates the two-record contract she signed with RCA
Records, but she views it as just one of many milestones.
"They invited me to sit on the bench in the game," she says. "Now I've
got to play. It's like step one of 25."
Martin, whose first record, "One Girl Army" (Bong Load Records),
features 11 songs, says she has been sifting through about 40 songs she
wrote to choose which cuts will make her next record.
She prefers her own songs over those written by others because she
wants to communicate what she experiences, feels and sees.
"Writing my own songs is so important to me," she said. "They are the
little snapshots of where you are."
***
Martin says she spent a day writing a few songs with songwriter Carole
King, who taught her a lot about writing in a short time. King told her
to make her point and get on with it, rather than write abstractly.
"We were introduced. We met and that was it -- we became friends,"
Martin says. "The best thing (about living in L.A.) is you meet a lot
of talented, creative people. And it's a lot of mutual, unspoken
respect."
While Martin recently recorded a song that plays in the opening scene
of the film "Sweet Home Alabama," she says the highlights of her
budding career h
ave been when club audience members show her they know her music. She
plays in a band along with two other classically trained musicians, a
drummer and bass guitarist.
"Now I have a song ('I'm Normal, Please Date Me') I play at shows, and
every time the audience sings along with me, that thrills me every
time. I get a kick out of it."
***
Martin has been getting her kicks by singing ever since her vocal cords
began vibrating while she was a high-spirited little girl. Her mother
taught her how to harmonize when she was 3 years old.
"She was a really good singer," Martin says of her mother, a graduate
of Southern Illinois University's music program, who taught music in
junior high schools, directed choirs and played the piano in churches.
Charlotte Martin's father took her to piano recitals and introduced her
to the music of composers such as Brahms, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff.
He also has her sing for his music students at Eastern, a tradition
that began when she was 10 years old that
continues to this day.
Becky Martin says Charlotte always knew she wanted to be a musician.
"From the age of 4 or 5, that was it," Becky Martin says. "That was all
she wanted to be."
Kienzler says Charlotte is finally getting the recognition her former
student deserves.
"It's a great gift inside of her that she has longed for her entire
life to give to the world," she says.
Huey Freeman