Lena Martell

Who is Lena Martell?

Lena Martell is a Scottish singer, who had a number one UK single with "One Day at a Time" in 1979.

She had released a number of standards in the 1970s on the Pye record label and drew crowds at cabarets. Her cover of the song One Day at a Time, written by Marijohn Wilkin and Kris Kristofferson, reached the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in November 1979. Her follow-up singles failed to chart, so she has the dubious honour of being classified as a one-hit wonder. She placed six albums in the UK Albums Chart between 1974 and 1980, including four that reached the Top 20.

Although out of the limelight for a while nursing her sick mother, Martell has now returned to the music industry, and is still touring the UK. She has released a few albums on the ScotDisc label. Her double album One Day at a Time: An Anthology of Song was released on Castle Records in 2003.

Martell had surgery to replace a valve in her heart, and in March 2008 underwent a triple heart bypass operation.