"We've been doing this for a very long time and it's still so much fun and so exciting to all of us. I still get these little flutters in my stomach when I go out there. Ashley calls them the 'happy butterflies.' It's still so exciting and thrilling to perform and travel and get to do what we have always wanted to do. We love it..." - Linnae Simpson
Sisters Kelly (now Harris), Ashley (now Freeman), Linnae (now Simpson) and Delilah (still a Martin) Martin grew up in Arkansas, in a rather rural neighborhood. "The closest neighbor was about four thousand miles down the road!" Delilah giggles. "It was a very, very quiet life growing up. The town was so small, there were maybe thirty kids in my graduating class. And I still keep up with all of them."
Music was also a big part of their lives growing up. "Our dad had a piano," Kelly recalls, "And every Sunday night, we would sit there and sing. It was a whole family affair. Mom, Dad and us. We would sing all night."
"We had no TV, so that was our entertainment," Delilah informs laughing.
As the girls grew up, they began getting more serious about their singing. "We formed this little night club act of sorts," Ashley remembers. "It was pretty bad, looking back on it. There we were, in these hideous costumes, singing these songs we made up on the way to the club. We thought we were really doing something, but looking back on it, I can't believe it. It was just terrible!" Still, Joel Gibson thought they showed promise, in late 1981.
"Those were Kelly's connections," Linnae points out. "She had been his secretary at one point and they were still friends. So he called her to let her know that he was starting this record label and was looking for artists. And since he knew we did that awful thing in the clubs, he wanted to know if we'd be interested."
It didn't take long for the Martin sisters to emphatically agree to the deal. "We didn't discuss it," Delilah maintains. "There wasn't much to discuss. You want to sign us? We want to let you!" On New Year's Day, 1983, the first album from Americans, poppy We the People released. "Originally, we really were the female version of Micah and the Mullenese," Delilah relates. "Kelly was the singer, we were sort of the backup singers. We actually were jokingly calling ourselves 'Kelly and the Martinettes!'"
The debut album sold well and the singles made a huge splash on the radio, but when time came for the follow up, the sisters had decided to change things up a bit. "We wanted to go back to our roots," Ashley explains. "The god-awful nightclub thing, where we all sang the lead on the songs and we all got the chance to really show what we could do vocally." The result, 1984's A New Day was a resounding success.
"I was so happy," Kelly smiles. "I had never, ever intended for it to be about me, anyway, so when they finally started getting the recognition they deserved, I couldn't have been happier for them!" The peppy choruses on A New Day won over audiences all over the country, but the Martin sisters were a little more concerned with yet another new project...motherhood. "Ashley and I both got pregnant the same month," Kelly giggles. "My daughter and her son were literally born six days apart. And what's terrible is we were both unbelievably pregnant and we were out on the road with Phoenix (Reeves)..."
"He hid from us!" Ashley interrupts laughing.
"Actually, he did toward the end," Kelly concedes. "And we probably shouldn't have been out there as pregnant as we were, but we really wanted to be. We really love what we do and we wanted to do it as long as we possibly could. Looking back on that, I sort of wish we'd stayed home and just taken it easy, but we wanted to be out there. There was no stopping us!"
"Pregos on parade! Coming to a city near you!" Ashley jokes.
After giving birth to their babies, the sisters hit the studio to record their third project, 1986's Pride. It was a safe record, one that didn't push the boundaries set by their previous projects very much. "That was the last record that we wrote," Linnae admits. "We'd always been very involved in writing all of our records, but after Pride, we were so busy with other things. Kelly, Ashley and I were all moms and we couldn't just drop everything and write the songs. So when it came time to make Amazing, we sort of drove everyone insane, because we wanted to be as involved in the actual songwriting as much as possible, but we didn't have the time to write them ourselves."
"Tony was so nice about it," Delilah recalls, referring to Tony Millerstein, who produced their fourth album, Amazing, "but you could tell he was just cursing us under his breath. He would write all these things and bring them to us and we would sit there and vote no on all of them. They just weren't what we wanted. We knew what we wanted when we heard it, and that just wasn't it."
More pregnancies and births and tighter schedules almost killed the album before it could be completed. "I had a very, very difficult pregnancy," confides Linnae. "So I couldn't come in at all. There were about two months when nothing happened, because I just couldn't be there." However, the entire process eventually came together and the resulting album, Amazing, released in March of 1989. The band calls this "the most progressive record we've ever done."
"We'd always kind of done this sweet, inoffensive pop," Kelly relates. "And with Amazing, we sort of kicked it up a notch and showed everyone that we were really rocker chicks at heart!" Singles "Better Days" and "Amazing" soared to the top of the charts and the album remains the highest selling Americans project of all time.
Another departure the ladies took from their standard fare came in late 1989, when their first Christmas album, A Holiday to Remember released. "We had such a great time recording that record!" Delilah enthuses. "At first, it was hard to get really excited about it, because we recorded it about as far from Christmas as a person can get, but Phoenix and Trent (Johnson, producers of the album) were so great about getting us in the spirit. They really did a fabulous job motivating us and making the whole thing fun. It was a great experience."
You can catch Americans on the road both in December, on the Holiday to Remember tour (with Phoenix Reeves and Trent Johnson) and through March of 1990, with the Amazing tour (with Melodi Dixon and Sparks).
Music was also a big part of their lives growing up. "Our dad had a piano," Kelly recalls, "And every Sunday night, we would sit there and sing. It was a whole family affair. Mom, Dad and us. We would sing all night."
"We had no TV, so that was our entertainment," Delilah informs laughing.
As the girls grew up, they began getting more serious about their singing. "We formed this little night club act of sorts," Ashley remembers. "It was pretty bad, looking back on it. There we were, in these hideous costumes, singing these songs we made up on the way to the club. We thought we were really doing something, but looking back on it, I can't believe it. It was just terrible!" Still, Joel Gibson thought they showed promise, in late 1981.
"Those were Kelly's connections," Linnae points out. "She had been his secretary at one point and they were still friends. So he called her to let her know that he was starting this record label and was looking for artists. And since he knew we did that awful thing in the clubs, he wanted to know if we'd be interested."
It didn't take long for the Martin sisters to emphatically agree to the deal. "We didn't discuss it," Delilah maintains. "There wasn't much to discuss. You want to sign us? We want to let you!" On New Year's Day, 1983, the first album from Americans, poppy We the People released. "Originally, we really were the female version of Micah and the Mullenese," Delilah relates. "Kelly was the singer, we were sort of the backup singers. We actually were jokingly calling ourselves 'Kelly and the Martinettes!'"
The debut album sold well and the singles made a huge splash on the radio, but when time came for the follow up, the sisters had decided to change things up a bit. "We wanted to go back to our roots," Ashley explains. "The god-awful nightclub thing, where we all sang the lead on the songs and we all got the chance to really show what we could do vocally." The result, 1984's A New Day was a resounding success.
"I was so happy," Kelly smiles. "I had never, ever intended for it to be about me, anyway, so when they finally started getting the recognition they deserved, I couldn't have been happier for them!" The peppy choruses on A New Day won over audiences all over the country, but the Martin sisters were a little more concerned with yet another new project...motherhood. "Ashley and I both got pregnant the same month," Kelly giggles. "My daughter and her son were literally born six days apart. And what's terrible is we were both unbelievably pregnant and we were out on the road with Phoenix (Reeves)..."
"He hid from us!" Ashley interrupts laughing.
"Actually, he did toward the end," Kelly concedes. "And we probably shouldn't have been out there as pregnant as we were, but we really wanted to be. We really love what we do and we wanted to do it as long as we possibly could. Looking back on that, I sort of wish we'd stayed home and just taken it easy, but we wanted to be out there. There was no stopping us!"
"Pregos on parade! Coming to a city near you!" Ashley jokes.
After giving birth to their babies, the sisters hit the studio to record their third project, 1986's Pride. It was a safe record, one that didn't push the boundaries set by their previous projects very much. "That was the last record that we wrote," Linnae admits. "We'd always been very involved in writing all of our records, but after Pride, we were so busy with other things. Kelly, Ashley and I were all moms and we couldn't just drop everything and write the songs. So when it came time to make Amazing, we sort of drove everyone insane, because we wanted to be as involved in the actual songwriting as much as possible, but we didn't have the time to write them ourselves."
"Tony was so nice about it," Delilah recalls, referring to Tony Millerstein, who produced their fourth album, Amazing, "but you could tell he was just cursing us under his breath. He would write all these things and bring them to us and we would sit there and vote no on all of them. They just weren't what we wanted. We knew what we wanted when we heard it, and that just wasn't it."
More pregnancies and births and tighter schedules almost killed the album before it could be completed. "I had a very, very difficult pregnancy," confides Linnae. "So I couldn't come in at all. There were about two months when nothing happened, because I just couldn't be there." However, the entire process eventually came together and the resulting album, Amazing, released in March of 1989. The band calls this "the most progressive record we've ever done."
"We'd always kind of done this sweet, inoffensive pop," Kelly relates. "And with Amazing, we sort of kicked it up a notch and showed everyone that we were really rocker chicks at heart!" Singles "Better Days" and "Amazing" soared to the top of the charts and the album remains the highest selling Americans project of all time.
Another departure the ladies took from their standard fare came in late 1989, when their first Christmas album, A Holiday to Remember released. "We had such a great time recording that record!" Delilah enthuses. "At first, it was hard to get really excited about it, because we recorded it about as far from Christmas as a person can get, but Phoenix and Trent (Johnson, producers of the album) were so great about getting us in the spirit. They really did a fabulous job motivating us and making the whole thing fun. It was a great experience."
You can catch Americans on the road both in December, on the Holiday to Remember tour (with Phoenix Reeves and Trent Johnson) and through March of 1990, with the Amazing tour (with Melodi Dixon and Sparks).