WORDS BY RANDY FOX
On a Thursday evening, 8 March 1956, Janis Martin stepped up to the microphone in RCA Victor’s studio in Nashville, Tennessee. She was less than three weeks away from her 16th birthday, but was already a veteran singer and performer with years of experience. With a shout of, “They can call you Bill, or even Billy…!” she launched into Will You, Willyum, a tune she’d recorded just a few weeks earlier as a favour to the composers and intended as a songwriter demo to pitch the tune to major labels. When RCA executive Steve Sholes heard it, he not only loved the song, but also the singer. Martin was just what he was looking for.
Just two months earlier, Sholes had been in Nashville for Elvis Presley’s first RCA recording session. The result of that evening’s work, Heartbreak Hotel, was zooming up the country and pop charts with Blue Suede Shoes by Carl Perkins snapping at its heels. Whatever you called this weird hybrid of hillbilly and R&B — “bounce blues”, “back shack music” or “rockabilly” — it was the hottest thing on the market, and Sholes, along with every other record man worth his salt, was looking for young hillbilly singers who could rock the beat.