Martha Davis (December 14, 1917 – April 6, 1960) was an American singer and pianist whose musical comedy act, “Martha Davis & Spouse“, was popular in the late 1940s and 1950s. Davis was born in Wichita, Kansas, and raised in Chicago, Illinois. By the mid-1930s, she had met and been influenced by Fats Waller, and performed regularly as a singer and pianist in Chicago clubs. In 1939, while married to her first husband, she first met bass player Calvin Ponder (October 17, 1917 - December 26, 1970), who went on to play in Earl Hines' band. The pair would marry in 1948. In 1948, Davis and Ponder moved to California, and Davis developed her recording career on Jewel Records in Hollywood with a trio including Ponder, Ralph Williams (guitar) and Lee Young (drums). Their cover of Dick Haymes' pop hit “Little White Lies“ reached # 11 on the Billboard R&B chart, followed by a duet with Louis Jordan, “Daddy-O“ in 1948, which reached #7 on the R&B chart that
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