Martha Redbone is a vocalist/songwriter/composer/educator and one of today’s most vital voices in American Roots music. She is known for her unique gumbo of folk, blues and gospel from her childhood in Harlan County, Kentucky infused with the eclectic grit of pre-gentrified Brooklyn. Inheriting the powerful vocal range of her gospel-singing African American father and the resilient spirit of her mother’s Southeastern Cherokee/Choctaw culture, Redbone broadens the boundaries of American Roots music with songs and storytelling that share her life experience as an Indigenous Black woman and mother in the new millennium. Redbone gives voice to issues of social justice, bridging traditions from past to present, connecting cultures, and celebrating the human spirit.
Redbone, along with longtime collaborator Aaron Whitby are the Composers of original music and score, arrangers and orchestrators of 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, premiered at the Booth Theater and garnered 7 Tony award nominations. Redbone and her longtime collaborator Aaron 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 offBroadway revival “for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuff” at the Public Theater.
Redbone’s album “The Garden of Love- Songs of William Blake”, written with Aaron Whitby and
produced by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founder/Grammy Winner John McEuen is an unexpected twist– “a brilliant collision of cultures”–The New Yorker. Her album “Skintalk” is described as the soulful sound of “Earth, Wind and Fire on the Rez”(Native Peoples magazine) and is included in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian exhibit “Up Where We Belong- Native Musicians in Popular Music”. Redbone is given honorable mention in the “Rumble-The Indians Who Rocked the World” 2017 documentary and an excerpt of her a cappella performance in the film is a featured clip in the documentary social media marketing.
Redbone’s recent works include Bone Hill – The Concert, an interdisciplinary musical theater work
inspired by the lives of Redbone’s family in the hills of coalmining Appalachia. Commissioned by Joe’s Pub/NEA and Lincoln Center for the Arts, Bone Hill- The Concert is currently touring extensively
nationwide and is a recipient of the NEFA National Theater Project Creation and Touring Grant and
National Performance Network Creation Fund and Lincoln Center. Theatrical commissions include
“Stars”- NY Theater Workshop- Jim Nicola, “Primer for a Failed Superpower”, Rachel Chavkin, and Black Mountain Women, directed by Les Waters currently in development with The Public Theater. Other works include original score, music and lyrics for new work in puppetry, “Human” created and directed by Nehprii Amenii, currently in development at the New Victory Theater, “Talking Circles” part of the Artistic Instigators series at New York Theater Workshop and commissions for classical compositions; compositions for the Goethe Institute / New York Theater Workshop collaboration: “Plurality of Privacy”; “Primer for a Failed Superpower” directed by Rachel Chavkin; a Chinese -American musical collaboration “Flood in the Valley” which premiered in Beijing in 2018; New Musical work Black Mountain Women currently in development at the Public Theater.
Alongside her career as a recording artist and songwriter Martha Redbone has maintained a steady
involvement with causes she believes in. Ms. Redbone is contracted by The Department of Indian Education- Louisiana, LaFourche Parish and teaches Southeastern Traditional Singing Workshop for the United Houma Nation’s Cultural Enrichment Camp program. An exemplary ambassador for both Native and African-American Youth for the National HIV/Aids Partnership, she was awarded the Red Ribbon Award for Outstanding Leadership presented on World AIDS Day at the United Nations in 2005. Martha is the 2022 recipient of Kentucky’s Governor Award for the Arts’ National Award for Music. An advocate for Why Hunger’s Artists Against Hunger and Poverty program, she helps raise and awareness of poverty and hunger in the United States, with particular attention to her home state of Kentucky and Black Mountain, Appalachia region. Redbone supports the Man Up Campaign, the global youth movement to eradicate violence against women and girls for whom she served as the indigenous affairs consultant and creative advisor, and with the support from founder Jimmie Briggs, advocated and recruited an additional delegation of dedicated for North American Indigenous students to share their stories of gender-based violence in their communities. Redbone currently serves on the board of Directors of Voices-Peoples History of the United States, Howard Zinn, Association on American Indian Affairs, and The Carlisle Indian Boarding School Project. She continues to record and tour for many projects.