The story goes that Allman had a dream where
Jimi Hendrix showed him the melody of the tune in a
Holiday Inn motel bathroom, using the sink faucet as a
guitar fretboard. Remembering the melody during the October 1971 sessions that produced most of the third side of what would become
Eat a Peach, Allman laid down the track, joined only by Dickey Betts and bassist
Berry Oakley, though Oakley's part would be mixed out of the final version, leaving the number as a duet for the two guitarists. (Oakley's part would be restored on the 1989 box set
Dreams.) It is commonly believed that the song's namesake was Martha Ellis, a twelve-year-old girl whose grave the Allman Brothers Band most likely came across during their frequent trips to
Rose Hill Cemetery in their homebase of
Macon, Georgia. The approximate geographic coordinates of the statue are 32°50'55.55"N, 83°38'2.21"W. (Both Duane Allman himself and Berry Oakley would be buried there by the end of 1972, as would Greg Allman when he died 45 years later.) However, as with Dickey Betts' 1970 instrumental "
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed", the song seems to have been named for one person, while actually being
about someone else. "Little Martha" was envisioned by Allman as an ode to his then-girlfriend Dixie Meadows. He had given her the pet name of
Martha because of the
vintage clothing she sometimes wore – Duane saying "you look like Martha Washington." After Allman's death, Meadows sued unsuccessfully for control of his estate. ==Longevity and cover versions==