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Martha Wash (born December 28, 1953, in San Francisco, California) is an R&B, Soul music, House music and Club/Dance singer/songwriter.
Wash began her music career as a backing singer for Sylvester. With fellow backing singer Izora Rhodes she was half of "Two Tons O' Fun", who would later be renamed The Weather Girls. As such, they were responsible for providing much of the fire-power behind several of the late singer's earliest releases - often their voices were mixed where Sylvester was actually the background singer and Wash and Rhodes voices were upfront. When the two plus-sized singers left to pursue a career on their own, they struck pay dirt with a handful of successful disco-oriented tracks -- reaching their commercial zenith with the release of "It's Raining Men," one of the classic songs of the late-disco and Hi-NRG era. They scored more moderate hits with "Dear Santa (Bring Me a Man for Christmas)" and "No One Can Love You More Than Me" in 1985.
Later, when the Weather Girls disbanded, Wash continued to lend her vocals to various dance and House music tracks. Several of them became massive pop, R&B and dance hits: Black Box's "Everybody Everybody," "I Don't Know Anybody Else" and "Strike It Up", as well as lesser-knowns such as "Fantasy", "Open Your Eyes" and "Hold On" and Seduction's "You're My One and Only (True Love)". C+C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)," hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1991.
Wash's powerful vocals were lip synched in the videos to the above songs by C+C's Zelma Davis and Black Box's Katrin Quinol. With the Milli Vanilli scandal still fresh in everyone's minds, Wash, also perturbed by the fact that her image had been labeled "unmarketable" because of her physical size, successfully sued to receive proper credit (and royalties) as the vocalist on all of the music. Wash's courtroom efforts spurred legislation making vocal credits mandatory on CD's and music videos. It also awarded her a recording contract with RCA Records, which led to her debut, self-titled solo album in 1993. The album scored three major top ten club/dance hits including "Carry On", "Give It To You" and "Runaround." The first two hit number one.
In 1996, Wash recorded a cover version of Elton John's, "I'm Still Standing" for the movie The First Wives Club.
Wash, a notable star within the gay community, continues to record new music into the 21st century such as her first new single in over 5 years, "You Lift Me Up" - a fusion of Gospel and House, which is the first song produced on her own label, Purple Rose Records - 2005. Martha Wash performed in the opening ceremony of the World's first OutGames in Montreal in July 2006. She has also performed at numerous Human Rights Campaign events in the U.S.
The gay-themed podcast Gay Pimpin' with Jonny McGovern recently dedicated an episode to Martha Wash and she obliged them with an extended telephone interview.
In 2006 Wash appeared as a guest on I've Got a Secret, and performed "It's Raining Men" for the panel.
Wash is scheduled to appear on Broadway (along with Sarah Dash of Labelle) in "Gals Too Big for Broadway." The show was supposed to run in late 2006, but has been temporarily postponed.
Due for release in July 2007 is DJ Tony Moran's compilation CD "The Event" featuring a brand new single from Martha entitled "Keep Your Body Working".
"Keep Your Body Working" is slated for release as a single in early September 2007.
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