Alex Welsh (9 July 1929 – 25 June 1982) was a Scottish jazz musician and vocalist, who played cornet and trumpet and led one of Britain's best jazz groups from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Archie Semple & Alex Welsh
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Welsh began his musical life in Leith on the smaller cornet, later switching to trumpet. The teenage Leith Silver Band and later gigs with Archie Semple's Capital Jazz Band represented the earliest phases of his gigging. After moving to London in 1954, he formed a band with clarinetist Archie Semple, pianist Fred Hunt, trombonist Roy Crimmins, and drummer Lennie Hastings. The band played a version of Chicago-style Dixieland jazz and was part of the traditional jazz revival in England.
Within a year the band played several times at the Royal Festival Hall, made it's first broadcasts and recordings and established a reputation for it's dedication to the Dixieland style and the excellence of its playing. From 1955 the band made several tours overseas. During the 1960s and early 1970s, Welsh continued to tour, including many visits to the United States. He was influenced by his fellow trad jazz bandleader Chris Barber and built up and extensive musical repertoire, working from popular music as well as jazz and building up a large mainstream following for ensembles.
Welsh recorded for the British Decca label from 1955 and had four records released that year, "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" (Decca F10538), "Blues My Naughtie Sweetie Gives to Me" (Decca F10557) and "What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry" (Decca F10652) plus "Dixielanders at the RFH" an EP (extended play single) on Decca DFE 6254. Six years later in 1961 the band's single "Tansy" on Columbia Records DB 4686 peaked at No. 45 and remained on the UK singles chart for four weeks.
In January 1963, British music magazine NME reported that the biggest trad jazz event to be staged in Britain had taken place at Alexandra Palace. The event included George Melly, Diz Disley, Acker Bilk, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer, Monty Sunshine, Bob Wallis, Bruce Turner, Mick Mulligan and Welsh. Although Welsh's ensemble was noted for its few personnel changes, by 1966 the trombonist Roy Crimmins had been replaced by Roy Williams and the clarinestist Archie Semple by John Barnes and Al Gay, who between them played seven different reed instruments. This gave the band a greater tonal variety and although it retained its early ideals, it also began to approach other forms of jazz and became highly regarded for its versatility.
Welsh toured internationally and played at the 1967 Antibes jazz festival, the 1968 Newport Jazz Festival (at great acclaim), and 1978 Nice Jazz Festival. In the period 1970-1980 Welsh was a performer with his Alex Welsh Band at public house venues throughout the UK, having performed at the Bell Pub in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where he was a regular in the early 1970s, and the Five Ways Pub in Sherwood, Nottingham in 1981 among many others.
By the mid-'70s, Welsh's health started to fail, but the trumpeter continued reaching for the high notes as long as he could until his death on June 25, 1982 in Hillingdon hospital in London, England, at the age of 52.
(Edited from The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Wikipedia)
Alice Gerrard (born July 8, 1934) is an American bluegrass and old-time music performer, writer, editor and teacher. As a singer who plays guitar, fiddle and banjo, she performed and recorded solo and in ensembles, notably in a duo with Hazel Dickens.
Alice Gerrard was born in Seattle, Washington. Her parents both had backgrounds in classical music, and Alice learned to play the piano at a young age. However, while there were occasional family sings around the piano, Gerrard didn't hear much in the way of folk music until she attended Antioch College in Ohio. Gerrard made friends with folk music fans in her dorm, and through them heard Harry Smith's influential collection Anthology of American Folk Music. Gerrard became fascinated with the stark music and dark themes of Smith's Anthology, and she learned to play guitar. One of her peers was Jeremy Foster, who became her first husband in 1956.
Gerrard left Antioch without graduating and relocated to Washington, D.C., where she discovered a lively folk music community, with special enthusiasm for bluegrass and old-time music. As Gerrard became a presence on the D.C. folk music scene, she became friends with Mike Seeger of the New Lost City Ramblers (they would marry years later after the death of Gerrard's first husband, who was killed in an automobile accident while commuting to work in 1964). Seeger introduced Gerrard to Hazel Dickens, a West Virginia-born singer living in Baltimore, Maryland who had a passion for classic Appalachian folk songs. Dickens and Gerrard discovered they harmonized well together, and they started playing shows together, quickly developing a loyal following in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.
In 1965, Dickens and Gerrard recorded a set of old-time classics at a church in Washington, D.C., backed by a group that included David Grisman on mandolin, Lamar Grier on banjo, and Chubby Wise and Billy Baker on fiddles. The session was released by Verve Folkways under the title Who's That Knocking? Years later, artists such as Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch would cite it as a key influence, and Dickens and Gerrard are often acknowledged as the first female-led act in bluegrass. But a follow-up LP, Won't You Come and Sing for Me, also recorded in 1965, wasn't released until Rounder Records brought it out in 1973. Rounder would release two more albums by Dickens and Gerrard, 1973's Hazel & Alice and 1976's Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard; the duo's four albums were collected into a CD set, 1996's Pioneering Women of Bluegrass.
Here's "Bowling Green" from above album.
In 1980, Gerrard recorded an album with Mike Seeger, simply titled Alice Gerrard & Mike Seeger (they had previously made a live album in 1971, and the two were reissued on one disc in 2008 as Bowling Green), but she spent most of the decade working behind the scenes. She founded and was editor-in-chief of The Old Time Herald magazine from 1987 to 2000 and in collaboration with Les Blank and Cece Conway, she directed Sprout Wings and Fly, a documentary about Appalachian fiddler Tommy Jarrell. Gerrard would also go on to teach courses on music and folklore at the University of North Carolina and Duke University.
It wasn't until 1994 that Gerrard made her belated debut as a solo artist, recording Pieces of My Heart for the respected bluegrass label Copper Creek Records. She teamed up with multi-instrumentalists Brad Leftwich and Tom Sauber, forming the trio Tom, Brad & Alice, and the act cut three albums together, 1998's Been There Still, 2000's Holly Ding, and 2001's We'll Die in the Pig Pen Fighting. Gerrard's second solo effort, Calling Me Home: Songs of Love and Loss, was released in 2002, and in 2005 Tom, Brad & Alice reunited for a fourth and final album, Carve That Possum.
Gerrard turned her attention to academics and live performances for several years, but returned to the recording studio to cut 2013's Bittersweet. While teaching at Duke University, Gerrard met M.C. Taylor, a student pursuing a master's degree in folklore who also happened to be a musician, writing and recording under the rubric Hiss Golden Messenger. Taylor was a fan of Gerrard's early recordings with Hazel Dickens, and offered to produce an album for her. The result was the 2014 release Follow the Music. In 2017, Gerrard and fellow old-time music advocate Kay Justice joined forces to cut the album Tear Down the Fences.
In the 2020s, she has continued to perform and record, was the subject of a documentary film by Kenny Dalsheimer, You Gave Me a Song, and has been a frequent staff member at the Augusta Heritage Center in West Virginia, the Port Townsend, Washington Festival of American Fiddle Tunes and other summer music camps and festivals across the United States. In June 2026, CBS News included her song Calling Me Home in its list of the 250 essential American songs of the past 250 years.
Mary Ford (July 7, 1924 – September 30, 1977) was an American guitarist and vocalist, comprising half of the husband-and-wife musical team Les Paul and Mary Ford. Between 1950 and 1954, the couple had 16 top-ten hits, including "How High the Moon" and "Vaya con Dios", which were number one hits on the Billboard charts. In 1951 alone they sold six million records. With Paul, Ford became one of the early practitioners of multi-tracking.
Mary Ford was born Iris Colleen Summers in El Monte, California. Her father was a minister, and her mother was Dorothy May White Summers. Mary came from a very musical family. All of Mary's brothers and sisters were musicians. Her parents travelled across the United States. When she was in junior high school, Colleen Summers performed in churches. She sang with a local girl named Mildred "Milly" Watson and later made gospel recordings with Milly's older brother, Marvin. Colleen even wrote some of the songs for these recordings. In 1939, Colleen and Milly won a talent contest in Pasadena. Famous people like a young Judy Garland were judges. They loved music so much that they left school to focus on their musical dreams. They briefly worked as ushers in a movie theater.
By 1943, Colleen Summers joined Vivian Earles and June Widener. They formed a western trio called the Sunshine Girls. They sang backup for Jimmy Wakely and his trio. The Sunshine Girls were regular performers on The Hollywood Barn Dance. This was a popular weekly radio show on CBS Radio. It was broadcast on Saturday nights. In 1944, the Sunshine Girls appeared in a film called I'm from Arkansas. They sang "You Are My Sunshine" in the movie. In 1945, Eddie Dean introduced Colleen Summers to guitarist Les Paul. At this time, she was a popular western singer on radio station KXLA. She and Les Paul began performing together in 1946. Colleen left the Sunshine Girls to work with Paul. Her older sister, Eva, later sang with the other members of the trio.
Colleen Summers also appeared on Gene Autry's Melody Ranch radio show. She was a cast member and featured singer from July to November 1946. From 1946 to 1948, Summers was a regular actor on The All-Star Western Theatre. This was a radio drama program. It was through her career in early country music and connections to singers Gene Autry and Eddie Dean that she joined her future husband’s group, the Les Paul Trio. By 1947, Colleen Summers and Les Paul became a couple. In January 1948, they were in a car accident in Oklahoma. Their car went off the road and fell into a frozen creek. Les Paul was badly hurt. His right elbow was shattered, and it took him 18 months to play guitar again. Colleen moved in with Paul to help him recover from his injuries.
By 1949, Summers was adopted the stage name Mary Ford after Paul turned to a phone directory to find a short, memorable name to differentiate his partner’s new pop-oriented music from her country past. Under this moniker, she went from a background vocalist to the forefront, singing and playing alongside one of the seminal names in guitar history. That same year, Les Paul and Mary Ford got married. They had a small ceremony in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on December 29. They later had three children: a baby who passed away shortly after birth in 1954, a fostered daughter named Mary Colleen Paul, and a son named Robert Ralph "Bobby" Paul. After their wedding, Paul and Ford started making radio shows for NBC. One show was called Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home. It was a 15-minute program broadcast every Friday night.
Mary Ford and Les Paul became huge music stars in the early 1950s. They released 28 hit songs for Capitol Records between 1950 and 1957. Some of their famous songs included "Tiger Rag", "Vaya con Dios", "Mockin' Bird Hill", and "How High the Moon". "Vaya con Dios" was number one for 11 weeks, and "How High the Moon" was number one for nine weeks. These songs featured Mary Ford singing harmonies with herself. This gave their music a unique and new sound. Paul and Ford recorded all their music at home or while traveling. They then sent the finished recordings to Capitol Records. Les Paul was very involved in deciding which songs would become hits. They also used a recording technique called close miking. This means the microphone was very close to the singer's mouth. This made the sound more personal and clear. It was a different style from older singing methods.
After touring and recording a lot, the couple moved to New York City. They wanted to move from radio to television. They recorded their famous song "How High The Moon" there. This song had many layers of guitar and Mary's voice, using 12 overdubs. Capitol Records was not sure about releasing it at first. But after more hits like "Tennessee Waltz" and "Mockin' Bird Hill", "How High The Moon" was released in March 1951. Within a month, "How High The Moon" and "Mockin' Bird Hill" were the number one and number two songs on Your Hit Parade. In 1951, Ford and Paul earned a lot of money. They had more top ten hits that year than many other famous artists combined. They also sold over six million records since January 1951. Paul bought a Cadillac for their tours to carry all their equipment. They also bought a home in Mahwah, New Jersey. It had a recording studio and a special echo chamber. In September 1952, Ford and Paul travelled to London. They performed at the Palladium Theatre. They even performed for Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family.
In 1953, the couple recorded "Vaya con Dios". This became the biggest-selling song of their career. It was number one on the Billboard charts for nine weeks. After the records success, they hosted The Les Paul and Mary Ford Show. This was their own daily television program. It was five minutes long and ran from 1953 to 1960 on NBC television in the mid-1950s, rock and roll music became very popular. This caused the popularity of many performers, including Paul and Ford, to decline. In 1955, they performed a concert at Carnegie Hall. In 1956, they performed at the Eisenhower White House. As rock and roll grew, Ford and Paul's songs appeared less on the charts in the late 1950s. In July 1958, Paul and Ford left Capitol Records and signed with Columbia. However, this move did not bring back their earlier success. They appeared on NBC's Five Star Jubilee in 1961. In November 1963, Mary Ford released her first solo song. It was an English version of "Dominique". By December 1964 Les and Mary were divorced. Around 1965, Mary Ford married Donald Hatfield. She had known him since high school. They settled in Monrovia, California. Mary and her sisters sang on an album called The New Sound of American Folk. This album was recorded at her brother Bobby Summers' studio.
Ford succumbed to complications of alcohol abuse in 1977. After eight weeks in a diabetic coma, she died in Arcadia, California, on September 30, 1977, at the age of 53. She is buried at Forest Lawn-Covina Hills in Covina, California. Engraved on her tombstone, are the words "Vaya con Dios" ("Go with God"), the name of one of her most popular songs.
Mary Ford and Les Paul received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 1541 Vine Street in Hollywood. In 1978, they were honoured by being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Jeannie Seely (July 6, 1940 – August 1, 2025) was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and author who broke barriers for women in Country Music with her bold style, emotional depth and trailblazing presence on the Grand Ole Opry. Seely's musical style categorized and identified with the country genre, while also incorporating elements of pop and soul. Critics and writers named her "Miss Country Soul," a title used throughout her career spanning seven decades due to not only her style, but also her emotional vocal performances.
Born Marilyn Jeanne Seely in Titusville, Pennsylvania, she was drawn to music at an early age. After singing at local dances, talent shows, and on the radio, Seely decided to pursue music professionally after graduating high school. Moving to Los Angeles in 1961, she worked as a secretary at Imperial Records, becoming a professional songwriter in her spare time and earning a promotion to professional songwriter. Her first break arrived in 1964, when Irma Thomas took "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)" -- a song she co-wrote with Randy Newman, as well as Judith Arbuckle and Pat Sheeran -- into Billboard's R&B Top 40; on its flipside was "Time Is on My Side," a song the Rolling Stones would soon turn into a standard.
Signing with Challenge Records, Seely released a pair of singles for the label in 1965, "What Am I Doing in Your World" and "Bring It on Back," but her primary success came as a songwriter. Country singers especially were drawn to her material, leading Seely to move to Nashville later in 1965. Aligning herself with Hank Cochran, Seely received a big break when she was hired to step into the vacancy left by Norma Jean, Porter Wagoner's partner on television and stage. Shortly afterward, she signed with Monument Records.
"Don't Touch Me," a song written by Hank Cochran, appeared in March 1966 and became a runaway hit, climbing to two on Billboard's Country chart while also scraping the bottom of the Hot 100. It'd win the Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance and help Seely become a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1967; she was the first singer to wear a mini-skirt on the Opry stage. By that point, she had racked up two additional Country Top 20 hits in "It's Only Love" and "A Wanderin' Man." Early in 1968, she once again reached the Top Ten thanks to "I'll Love You More (Than You Need)." Seely married songwriter Hank Cochran June 15, 1969, in Renfro Valley, Kentucky, in a church ceremony. Around 1975, the couple built a home set on a farm with 77 acres of property in Hendersonville, Tennessee, but in the late 1970s, the couple separated and officially filed for divorce in 1979.
Seely's busy solo career led her to part ways with Wagoner, as he had replace her with Dolly Parton, and she left Monument for Decca in 1969, where she collaborated with producer Owen Bradley. "Wish I Didn't Have to Miss You," her first big hit for the label, was a duet with Jack Greene that reached number two early in 1970. Seely and Greene reteamed a few times during the early '70s, reaching the charts in 1972 with "Much Oblige" and "What in the World Has Gone Wrong with Our Love," singles which punctuated individual hits by Seely. Additionally, Seely continued to work as a songwriter; Faron Young took her "Leavin' and Sayin' Goodbye" to number one in 1972.
In 1973, Seely signed with MCA. "Can I Sleep in Your Arms," her first single for the label, was her last Top Ten hit, peaking at six. "Lucky Numbers" went to 11 early in 1974; later that year, "He Can Be Mine" became her last Top 40 hit on the Billboard Country charts. In June 1977, Seely was involved in a car collision in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, (located outside of Nashville) after her vehicle crashed into a tree. She was admitted to Nashville Memorial Hospital, suffering a fractured jaw, broken ribs, a punctured and collapsed lung. Upon arriving at the hospital, she was given same-day surgery to repair her lung. She was reported in "fair condition" and eventually recovered from her injuries. Friend Dottie West helped Seely following her hospital release, helping her when she was immobile and taking her on car rides for a change in scenery. Seely later reflected that the accident brought her a new appreciation for life. "You know, it sounds like a cliche, but it's true that your perspective changes when you have a close call, what you took for granted you come to appreciate more." Willie Nelson had her sing on the soundtrack to his 1980 film Honeysuckle Rose, then she re-teamed with Jack Greene in 1982 to re-record their old hits.
By the mid-'80s, Seely was concentrating on performances in Nashville -- she appeared regularly as a host at the Grand Ole Opry and played at her short-lived nightclub Jeannie Seely's Country Club, which morphed into regular TV appearances, particularly on the Nashville Network. Seely continued to balance the Opry and television throughout the '90s, dabbling in some acting work as well as an occasional stop in the recording studio. She released an eponymous independent album in 1990, then her first holiday set, Number One Christmas, in 1996. The covers album Been There…Sung That! arrived in 1999, followed by Life's Highway in 2003. Seely married Nashville attorney Gene Ward in 2010. In 2011 she released another covers album, Vintage Country: Old But Treasured, with Written in Song containing a collection of songs she wrote for other artists, following in 2017. The 2020 album An American Classic combined re-recordings of her hits with covers of songs from the likes of Sammy Cahn, Roger Miller, and Paul McCartney. She was also nominated for four CMA Awards, and in 2023 she was presented with the CMA Joe Talbot Award, which is awarded in recognition of outstanding leadership and contributions to the preservation and advancement of Country Music’s values and tradition.
In 2024, Seely was hospitalized in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after suffering from "acute diverticulitis" and "dehydration" on a trip to her hometown. She was later released and was reportedly "doing well". Her husband Gene Ward died on December 13, 2024, after a recent cancer diagnosis. As of her last Grand Ole Opry show on February 22, 2025, Seely had made 5,397 Opry performances, more than any other artist in the Opry’s 100-year history. Seely’s last public appearance was on March 1, 2025, when she attended the rebranded opening of the Legends of Country Music Museum located in Nashville’s Music Valley area. In May 2025, Seely said that she had multiple surgeries since March of that year, had later contracted pneumonia, and was undergoing rehabilitation. Seely died of an intestinal infection on August 1, 2025, at the age of 85. At the time of her death, she was hospitalized at TriStar Summit Medical Centre in Hermitage, Tennessee.
Throughout her career, Seely spearheaded efforts to support and enhance artist, musician, and songwriter roles in the music industry, especially paving the way for females who followed. Instrumental in instilling an atmosphere of fellowship and camaraderie at the Grand Ole Opry – and in any music circle she entered – Seely connected with artists, musicians, songwriters, and industry personnel from all generations and backgrounds.
(Edited from AllMusic, Country Music Association, Wikipedia & Fayfare's Opry Blog)
Owen Gray OD (5 July 1939 – 20 July 2025), also known as Owen Grey, was a Jamaican musician. His work spans the R&B, ska, rocksteady, and reggae eras of Jamaican music, and he has been credited as Jamaica's first home-grown singing star.
Gray seemed destined for stardom at an early age, born in Kingston, he showed an affinity for music and a love of singing very early in life, winning his first talent contest at the age of nine and also distinguishing himself in the local church choir, where he sang first tenor (and his mother played piano). His father was a career military man, but the younger Gray set his sights on music as a career early on, and by his teens he was an experienced singer and performer -- he attended the Alpha School, whose other alumni included such future legends as Tommy McCook and Dizzy Johnny Moore, and by 19 he was ready to turn professional.
In a sense, Gray and his contemporaries could not have timed their lives and careers better, as Jamaica's musical life was ready to bloom -- the world was already listening to the sounds of calypso music in the late '50s, initially by way of Trinidad (and pioneering figures such as Sir Lancelot) and more recently by such island-descended figures as Harry Belafonte and Lord Burgess, and Jamaica, which was already moving toward independence from Great Britain, was about to experience a cultural renaissance as well.
Back in Kingston, Gray found himself in high demand, and his voice was quickly captured -- working in idioms from rock & roll to American-style R&B -- on tape by producers Leslie Kong, Prince Buster, Duke Reid, and, most importantly, Coxsone Dodd, who was just starting up his legendary Studio One label at the time; Gray's "On the Beach" (which featured local trombone virtuoso Don Drummond) was among the very earliest releases on that label. It was also a group of sides that he cut for Coxsone Dodd that resulted in Gray becoming the first solo Jamaican artist to have an LP of Jamaican popular music (as opposed to calypso music and folk songs) released in England -- the Esquire imprint Starlite Records combined a bunch of them in 1961 as Owen Gray Sings, which was also released in Jamaica; the album never sold even moderately well, but it was a beginning, and soon he had competing London labels issuing different tracks. With advance work like that going on without his direct input, he could hardly resist the opportunity to take the leap to the next career step, and cultivate a London audience from London, and in the spring of 1962 he moved there.
Gray recorded for Melodisc, which had previously licensed some of his Jamaican sides, and he was soon established in London, finding a large and serious club audience. He toured Europe in 1964, doing mostly soul music, and also signed with Blackwell's now established Island Records label. By 1966 he was well known in England as a soul singer as well as for his ska and reggae sides, and made the switch to rocksteady easily enough, cutting sides for producer Sir Clancy Collins, and also licensing some songs to the new Trojan Records label -- his versions of the ballads "These Foolish Things" and "Always" reflected the soft ballad style for which he was known at the time. He enjoyed some further success fronting the Maximum Band (on the Fab Records imprint of Melodisc) with the ballad "Cupid," which charted in 1968. He also found favour with the early skinheads, thanks to a jump beat-driven tune called "Apollo 12" that was released in 1970, even as he continued to keep his hand in ballads with releases such as "Three Coins in the Fountain."
Gray moved to the Pama label in 1968, releasing his sides on their Camel Records imprint, which included "Woman a Grumble" and his version of King Floyd's "Groove Me." By 1972 he was back with Island Records, where his reggae versions of the Rolling Stones' "Tumblin' Dice" and John Lennon's "Jealous Guy" were released to complete (and astonishing) indifference; strangely enough, one of his bigger successes around this time took place in Jamaica, where his "Hail the Man" -- a single praising the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie -- was embraced by the burgeoning Rasta audience. Gray briefly tried basing himself in New Orleans -- not surprising since his early idols included Fats Domino -- and then returned to Jamaica, where he found fresh inspiration in the booming demand for roots reggae. During the mid-'70s, working with producer Edward "Bunny" Lee, he saw success on both sides of the Atlantic as a mainstay of the roots reggae movement.
Since the 1970s Gray's career has waxed and waned, and he had returned to singing ballads by the 1990s. With the passing of his 40th anniversary as a professional musician in 1998, however, Gray had once more risen to stardom around the world, a fact confirmed by his international engagements and the release in 2004 of Shook, Shimmy & Shake: The Anthology, a double-CD set that spans a significant chunk of his career. The new millennium has seen Gray continue to focus on ballads as well as gospel material, including 2004's Jesus Loves Me on the True Gospel label. In 2023, Gray was awarded the Jamaican Order of Distinction, in recognition of his contributions to the nation's music industry. Two years later, Owen Gray died on July 20, 2025 at the age of 86. Writing, recording, and performing to the end, Owen Gray’s life represents an incredible chapter in the birth and formation of Jamaican music, and a contributing factor in its International success.
Marion Worth (July 4, 1930* - December 19, 1999) was an American country music singer professionally known as "Lady" Marion Worth, for her dignified manner and soft, melodic voice. She was a popular performer on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee during the 1960's and early 1970s.
Born Mary Ann Ward, she was the daughter of a railroad worker who taught her to play piano. She won a local talent contest for five weeks straight as a 10-year-old, but did not then plan on pursuing a career in music. Instead she prepared for a nursing career at the Paul Hayne School. While there she continued to perform in talent contests, sometimes joined by her sister. A local record company hired her as a bookkeeper and she began to set her sights on singing professionally.
Ward made her radio debut on Dallas, Texas' KLIF-AM. She then returned to Birmingham and worked at WVOK-AM and WAPI-AM. She also appeared on WAPI-TV (Channel 13). During that time she met Happy Wilson, leader of the Golden River Boys. He became quite impressed with her singing and brought her with him to Huntsville to perform on WBHP-AM. He and Slim Lay brought her into the recording studio and scored a hit with her first single.
"Are You Willing, Willie?" was Worth's own composition. It was released as the flip side of a cover of Wilson's "This Heart of Mine" on Huntsville's Cherokee Records in 1959. The track was picked up on radio and peaked at #12 on the country music charts. Her 1960 follow-up on Guyden Records, "That's My Kind of Love" reached #5 and brought her to the attention of Nashville's Jack Stapp, who signed her on to appear on WSM-AM's "Friday Night Frollic" as well as to Columbia Records. She was named one of the Top Ten Most Promising Female Vocalists of 1960 by Cashbox magazine.
Her first Columbia single, "I Think I Know", produced by Don Law and Frank Jones, peaked at #7 in 1961. It was followed by "There'll Always Be Sadness", which peaked at #21. She married Happy Wilson who by that time ran his own music company out of Nashville until Capitol Records hired him to manage their operations there. Worth's popularity waned for nearly two years until the song "Shake Me I Rattle (Squeeze Me I Cry)" brought her back to the Top 15 on the country charts and also crossed over into Top 50 pop music sales, earning radio play as an easy listening and Christmas tune due to its theme of toys and giving. Her cover of Ray Price's "Crazy Arms" also reached the Top 20 in 1963 and she joined the regular cast of the Grand Ole Opry before the year was out.
Three of Worth's 1964 releases broke the Top 40, "You Took Him Off My Hands (Now Please Take Him Off My Mind)" reached #33 and was followed by "Slipping Around" (a duet with George Morgan, #23), and "The French Song" (#25). She ended her Columbia years with the 1966 single "I Will Blow Out The Light" which peaked at #32. In 1967 Worth signed with Decca Records and provided them with two Top 100 singles, "A Woman Needs Love" (#64, 1967) and "Mama Sez" (#45, 1968). Worth's success on the country music charts waned after 1968.
Her hobby was to study the history of the world, which she focused a lot of time on after her chart success faded away. However, Worth didn't stop performing. Her ability to change from sultry ballads to lively barn dance-type numbers made her a popular performer on the Grand Ole Opry, where she was deemed a singer’s singer, and she was one of the first country stars to play Carnegie Hall in New York. She continued to tour in the USA and Canada and, in later years, became a popular performer in various Las Vegas venues until her death.
On Sunday, December 19, 1999, Worth died in Nashville, Tennessee at the Tennessee Christian Medical Center from complications of emphysema. She was 69 years old, and was survived by a daughter, Joyce.
(Edited from Wikipedia & Rocky52)(*Some sources give her birth year as 1935)
Janette Carter (July 2, 1923 – January 22, 2006), was the last surviving member of country's immortal Carter Family, championing the cause of traditional American roots music into the 21st century.
Janette Carter was born in Maces Springs, Virgina and was the youngest daughter of A.P. and Sara Carter Jeanette learned autoharp from her mother and at age twelve began appearing with the Family who signed with RCA Victor producer/talent scout Ralph Peer in 1927. Over the course of classics like "Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow," "Keep on the Sunny Side," and "No Depression," the Carters introduced the pure, poignant harmonies and intricate melodies that would define country & western for decades to follow, establishing the trio as the most influential group in roots music history.
Three Carter recording sessions took place in Charlotte. The first two were arranged by RCA Victor in May of 1931; the final session was undertaken in June of 1938 for Decca Records. Twenty-nine sides were recorded in all.Despite their commercial success A.P. and Sara Carter divorced in 1932. Seven years later, Sara married A.P.'s cousin Coy Bayes and relocated to California, taking her children with her. The year 1938 proved to be especially successful for the Carters.
They were hired by Consolidated Drug Trade Products—the Chicago-based maker of Peruna tonic, Kolorbak hair dye, and Radio Girl perfume—and sent to Texas where they broadcast daily over high-wattage border radio stations just inside Mexico. The border stations reached much of North America and introduced the Carters to hundreds of thousands of new fans. By the late 1930s Jeanette and her bother Joe were regularly adding their voices to the Carter Family broadcasts on border radio and over WBT. Along the way she helped her father gather traditional tunes from rural singers. A. P. would write down the words and Janette would commit the tunes to memory. “She was my tape recorder,” A. P. is quoted as saying proudly.
A.P. & Sara Carter with Janette and Joe
When not broadcasting on border radio, Consolidated Drug brought the Carter Family back to powerful 50,000-watt WBT in Charlotte. A Charlotte Observer radio listing for June 1939 indicates that the Carters were then broadcasting a “farm time” show with announcer Grady Cole each weekday morning, and a second half-hour program every afternoon. This schedule seems to have continued into early 1940 when the family returned to Texas for more broadcasts and transcriptions. Historians report that the family returned to Charlotte in late 1941 or early 1942 for a final six months of work for WBT. It was then that the Carter Family concluded its recording career, but in 1952 both A.P. and Sara agreed to a comeback, enlisting Janette and her brother Joe before signing to the Acme label to record some 100 songs over the next four years.
Following her father's 1960 death, Janette, who was at the time an elementary school cook, dedicated her life to preserving their music and legacy, hosting informal music programs at A.P.'s Poor Valley, Virgina, retail store. Although she never earned the commercial or critical acclaim awarded her sister June Carter Cash, Janette also mounted a solo career, in 1972 releasing her debut LP, Storms Are on the Ocean, on the tiny Birch label. Howdayadoo followed on Traditional Records a year later.
In 1976 she established the Hiltons, VA-based Carter Family Fold, a nonprofit amphitheater and museum site built from old railroad ties and school bus seats dedicated to the old-time music of rural Appalachia. Despite the Fold's strict adherence to traditional acoustic music, Janette eventually eased her restrictions in order to allow her brother-in-law Johnny Cash to play an electric set.
She directed the centre and served as master of ceremonies and performer at the Saturday night shows, often accompanied by her brother Joe. She toured in the United States and abroad, appeared on radio and TV and was recognized as a living musical treasure. But by all accounts she remained an unaffected country woman who called everybody, including former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, “honey.”
Carter told a Washington Post reporter in 1989 that a visitor to the center had once asked her what she was striving for. “That’s when it hit me,” she said. “I’m not striving for anything. I’ve reached it.” Carter continued hosting weekly concerts at the Fold into her eighties, and in 2004 the Bear Family label assembled Deliverance Will Come, compiling the entirety of her slim solo output. For a long time she battled Parkinson's disease and other illnesses, then after a fall she was taken to the Holston Valley Medical Center, Kingsport, Tennessee, where she died on January 22, 2006 at the age of 82 years.
She was 82 years old. She was buried next to her mother, Sara Carter Bayes, and her brother, Joe, at the Mount Vernon United Methodist Church Cemetery in Maces Spring.
Carter is a recipient of a 2005 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States' highest honour in the folk and traditional arts, in recognition for her lifelong advocacy for the performance and preservation of Appalachian music.
(Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia, History South & Masters of Traditional Arts)
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