“an organic, gorgeous feast for ears and minds” – Huffington Post
Martha Redbone is a vocalist, songwriter, composer and educator of African American, Cherokee and Choctaw descent. A multi-award-winning musician, the charismatic songstress is celebrated for her tasty gumbo of roots music embodying the folk and mountain blues sounds of her childhood in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky, mixed with the eclectic grit of her teenage years in pre-gentrified Brooklyn.
Inheriting her powerful gospel-singing father’s voice and the resilient spirit of her mother’s Southeastern Indigenous culture, Redbone broadens the boundaries of American roots music with songs and storytelling that share her life experience as a Black and Native American woman and mother navigating the new millennium. Martha also works in partnership with longtime collaborator/husband Aaron Whitby. Their works give voice to issues of social justice, connecting cultures and celebrating the human spirit.
Her album The Garden of Love: Songs of William Blake is “a brilliant collision of cultures” (New Yorker). Redbone and Whitby are the composers, arrangers and orchestrators of original music and score for the 2022 Broadway revival of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuff, the 1976 classic choreopoem by the late Ntozake Shange, premiering at the Booth Theater. The production garnered seven Tony Award nominations and critical acclaim.
Redbone and Whitby are the 2020 Drama Desk Award recipients for Outstanding Music in a Play and the 2020 Audelco Award recipient for Outstanding Composer of Original Music and Score for the Off-Broadway revival. Redbone is a 2021 United States Artist Fellow.
Recommended for Fans of Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, Richie Havens and Amythyst Kiah.
Learn More: https://martharedbone.com/
