Little Martha

"Little Martha"
Song by The Allman Brothers Band
from the album Eat A Peach
Released	1972
Recorded	1971
Genre	Folk
Length	2:07
Label	Capricorn
Songwriter(s)	Duane Allman
Producer(s)	Tom Dowd

"Little Martha" was the only Allman Brothers Band track written solely by group leader and partial namesake Duane Allman. The song first appeared as the final studio track on the Allman Brothers Band's fourth album, Eat a Peach, released in 1972. The track was recorded in October 1971, a few weeks before Duane Allman's death in a motorcycle accident.

Allman's original recording of the song is a bouncy fingerstyle acoustic guitar instrumental duet with minimal accompaniment. Allman and bandmate Dickey Betts played the tune on 6-string guitars using open E tuning, one using a flat-top guitar, and one using a resonator guitar. The song's simple melody and rhythmic counterpoint quickly made it a favorite among fans; acoustic guitar virtuoso Leo Kottke, who often covered the song in performance, once called it "the most perfect guitar song ever written."

Song origin

The story goes that Allman had a dream where Jimi Hendrix showed him the melody of the tune in a Holiday Inn motel bathroom, using the sink faucet as a guitar fretboard. Remembering the melody during the October 1971 sessions that produced most of the third side of what would become Eat a Peach, Allman laid down the track, joined only by Dickey Betts and bassist Berry Oakley, though Oakley's part would be mixed out of the final version, leaving the number as a duet for the two guitarists. (Oakley's part would be restored on the 1989 box set Dreams.)

Statue of Martha Ellis in Rose Hill Cemetery.

It is commonly believed that the song's namesake was Martha Ellis, a twelve-year-old girl whose grave the Allman Brothers Band most likely came across during their frequent trips to Rose Hill Cemetery in their homebase of Macon, Georgia. The approximate geographic coordinates of the statue are 32°50'55.55"N, 83°38'2.21"W. (Both Duane Allman himself and Berry Oakley would be buried there by the end of 1972; as would Greg Allman when he died 45 years later) However, as with Dickey Betts' 1970 instrumental "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed", the song seems to have been named for one person, while actually being about someone else. Little Martha was envisioned by Allman as an ode to his then-girlfriend Dixie Meadows. He had given her the pet name of Martha because of the vintage clothing she sometimes wore – Duane saying "you look like Martha Washington." After Allman's death, Meadows sued unsuccessfully for control of his estate.

Longevity and cover versions

Both Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts have included "Little Martha" on live albums. It appears in a wildly different electric version as the opening track to Dickey Betts' 2004 limited-release live album, Instant Live At The Odeon. On Allman's 1974 effort, The Gregg Allman Tour, the studio version can be heard faintly on the PA system after the closing track, "Will The Circle Be Unbroken". It was also interwoven into bassist Oteil Burbridge's bass solos during certain live shows in the late 1990s by The Allman Brothers Band. Pickin' On The Allman Brothers: A Bluegrass Tribute contains a 3:40 min version of "Little Martha" Guitarist Mac McAnally, a 10 time Country Music Association musician of the year and a long time member of The Coral Reefer Band, Jimmy Buffett's backing band, often plays Little Martha solo during an interlude in the main show. "Little Martha" was recorded by Leo Kottke on his 1986 album "A Shout Toward Noon/Leo Kottke".