A 67-year-old native of the once-rural Germantown, Tennessee (now a sprawling, affluent Memphis suburb), Martin began playing guitar in 1956, the year Elvis Presley became a household name. Self-taught, Leroy could at first only play in what he refers to as “batchaboo” tuning (open G or D), or E major-based shapes in standard tuning, using a makeshift capo made from a pencil to play in other keys.
It was some years later in Hazel, Arkansas that Leroy first saw a gospel guitarist who turned the future Soul Survivor onto the chord-based approach that later became so integral to his style. “He was a spiritual player,” Martin recalls. “He would make a chord with one finger on two strings, and then play other things at the same with his other fingers. I thought I would never learn how to do that. It took me years. I used to pick all day, sometimes go to sleep with the guitar across my chest—next thing I know, it’s daylight.”
After acquiring his first electric guitar, Leroy made his way into the Memphis scene, learning even more tricks of the trade from legendary local guitarist Earl the Pearl. Unlike most gigging Memphis musicians, Martin did not play with bands at first. “I would play house parties, just me and my guitar. I would do songs by B.B. King, Chuck Berry, and stuff I made up.” He remembers one house party where the floor collapsed. “There was some big women dancin’ there,” he laughs. “They weighed like 300 pounds!”
Eventually, Leroy made his way onto the old pre-tourist Beale Street scene. Martin became a regular at places like Old John’s, Joe Robertson’s, the Bungalow Inn, and the Blue Stallion. Sometime around 1971, Leroy purchased the tobacco-burst Casino that he still plays to this day. Like so many Memphis blues and R&B musicians, however, playing the juke joints and house rent parties was rarely enough to pay the bills. Leroy ran a tree service for years, and his guitar sat in its case for long periods. At other times, Leroy played around town with various groups, including Big Lucky Carter, with whom he recorded, eventually touring in the UK and France in 1998. However, it was after a several years of silence that Leroy finally hooked up with his old friend Melvin Lee and began playing every weekend at Wild Bill’s, some three and a half years ago. 
