Donna Martin

Donna Martin - Bio

With a love for contemporary folk, blues, old country and early rock, Martin blends all of these influences together and lands within the broad spectrum of Americana music with her sixth cd release Big Country. The new collection of songs originated during a three-month artist residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico last winter.

Born and raised in the suburbs of Connecticut, Martin now lives in the Farmington valley where historical homes lay claim to their connection with the underground railroad. It is a place where the valley floor can still flood in a too wet summer and local farmers will watch the corn flats fail for the season. Raised just a stones throw from Boston and New York City, their stark contradictions to rural suburbia broadened her sense of the world. It is the surroundings of this home, where the open fields gradually lose ground to strip malls that Martin draws lyrical inspiration from.

After two decades of touring the northeast and parts of Canada, sharing the stage with the likes of Charlie Daniels, Nicolette Larson and a Lilith Fair performance along side Bonnie Raitt and Sara McLachlan, the guitar driven songwriter has become a well honed performer adept at storytelling, leading her audience through big themes by way of the small particulars.

Performing Songwriter Magazine said it best. "Martin's writing and her singing is wistful and personal. A singer-songwriter whose stories are colored by powers of observation and the frames she puts around them. Sometimes I wonder what draws me into a recording and makes me care. Is it the lyric? The way it's presented? Is it the music? The way it's woven around those words? I know in this case it's a mix of all of the above."

Discography

Big Country CD 2011