Chameleonic, soulful, raunchy, rich with feeling and delightfully demented, Amber Martin is a force to be reckoned with. In her shows Wig Shop and Amber Alert! she careens from character to character, bursting into full-throated song with her pitch-perfect voice, leaving audiences gasping for air between guffaws, peppered with Skyped-in guest appearances by her mother or the actress Karen Black. This ex-pageant queen from the hometown of Janis Joplin (Port Arthur, Texas) is an ace singer and comedienne – equal parts Carol Burnett, Patsy Cline, Richard Pryor, Gilda Radner, Chaka Khan and Laraine Newman. An eccentric experimental jazz singer, a meth-ravaged ex-carny, a late-night R&B DJ, and a crackers impersonation of Reba McIntyre are but some of Ms. Martin’s incarnations from her psychedelic panoply of characters. Amber Alert! returns to Joe’s Pub in NYC on May 21 and 28, 2011.

Amber Martin