Martha Wash of "The Weather Girls"

        Martha Wash is an American R&B, soul, house, and club/dance singer/songwriter known for her distinctive and powerful voice and for her success with The Weather Girls. Wash began her music career as a back-up singer for Sylvester. With fellow backing singer Izora Rhodes, she was a part of the vocal duo, 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 Sylvester's earliest releases — often their voices were mixed so that Sylvester was actually the background singer and Wash's and Rhodes' voices were upfront.
    When they left to pursue a career on their own, they achieved success with a handful of disco tracks, culminating in the 1982 release "It's Raining Men", a worldwide hit that peaked at #2 on the UK singles chart, #1 in Australia, #1 on the Euro Hot 100, #46 on the Billboard Hot 100, #34 on the U.S. R&B chart, and #1 on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart. "It's Raining Men" receives regular play in dance clubs and R&B radio to this day: it stands as one of the classic songs of the late-disco era. Into the early 90's, Martha became one of the most sought after session singers and soon found herself recording for numerous acts - Seduction and C+C Music Factory to name a few. From "You're My One and Only (True Love)" to the already mentioned "Everybody Dance Now", Martha was all over radio airwaves and had club-goers moving to her distinct vocal styling.
     She recorded hit singles; "Everybody Everybody", "I Don't Know Anybody Else" and "Strike It Up", which became some her biggest hits. She continued to pursue a solo vocal career and in 1993, she produced her first solo, self-titled project, Martha Wash. Some of the hit songs from her self-titled album produced three #1 dance singles; "Carry On", "Give It To You", and "Runaround" and all made it to the top of the Billboard charts. Martha appeared on numerous television shows to promote the album, including The Arsenio Hall Show where she opened the night singing "Everybody Dance Now".
     Martha's most current project is one that is extremely close to her heart. In 2004, she began her own record company, Purple Rose Records, and immediately saw the first single, "You Lift Me Up" soar high into the top 5 on Billboard Magazine's Club Play Chart. She is currently recording material for her upcoming project which she says will be "inspirational and uplifting".