[1] From childhood, he learned the fiddle taught to him by Carl Alverson, Sr., of Sparta and ukulele, as well as the guitar and in his early teens left home to go to Nashville to pursue a full-time career as a country musician.
Martin was working at radio station WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee in 1948 when he was asked to replace Bill Monroe's fiddler Chubby Wise, who was going to leave the Bluegrass Boys.
[4] In 1950, Martin joined Roy Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys on the Grand Ole Opry, staying with the group until the fall of 1951.
Said Hartford, "I first heard Benny Martin with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs in the early fifties and his playing opened up a whole new world to me of how the fiddle should go… [He] played these lush beautiful chords and slides that just hugged and danced and got up all around me and before the music was over I was bouncing off the walls.” In 1997, after a long retirement and affliction with spasmodic dysphonia,[10] an illness that affected his ability to talk and sing, Benny Martin emerged to record a two part project entitled The 'Big Tiger' Roars Again (Parts 1&2) on OMS Records.
Produced by Hugh Moore, the cream of contemporary bluegrass and country music stars that contributed was impressive and included Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas, Ronnie McCoury, Ricky Skaggs, Bryan Sutton and Alison Krauss.