Thumbs Carllisle born 2 April 1931

Kenneth Ray Carllile (April 2, 1931 – July 31, 1987), better known as Thumbs Carllile (Carlisle in some collections),was an American country music guitarist and songwriter known for his innovative zither-like fingerstyle playing, sitting with his guitar in his lap while fretting, picking and strumming with his fingers and thumbs. He performed with Little Jimmy Dickens at the Grand Ole Opry in the early 1950s, and was a member of Roger Miller's band from 1964 to 1972. 

Kenneth Carllile was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up on his impoverished father's tenant farm in Harrisburg, Illinois. At age eight he began playing a Dobro resonator guitar won by his sister Evelyn, and after she hid the steel bar, Carllile began using his thumbs. When his father gave him a Silvertone guitar, his small thumb and fingers were too short to make it around the neck, so he played it on his lap like the Dobro. 

Thumbs & Hank Garland

In 1941, Carllile's family moved to Granite City, Illinois, and he later made his debut playing "Sweet Georgia Brown" at a Ferlin Husky concert at the Music Box Club in East St. Louis. He was expelled from high school at 16 for refusing to shave, and instead performed with Husky until he was discovered by Little Jimmy Dickens in 1949 during a St. Louis appearance. He joined Dickens' Country Boys after demonstrating he could play both parts of Dickens' twin guitar lines. Dickens gave him the nickname Thumbs, which Carllile never embraced. He played with the group until 1952, including performances at the Grand Ole Opry. 

From 1952–54, Carllile served in the US Army, performing with its Special Services division. He was stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, where he met and married another service member, singer-songwriter Virginia Boyle, in 1955. After his discharge, Carllile regularly appeared on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri, from 1956 to 1957, both as a soloist and with Bill Wimberley's Country Rhythm Boys. They released Springfield Guitar Social on Starday in 1958. In the late 50s, he and Virginia performed in Billings, Montana and appeared on KOOK-TV. 

                                   

In 1961, Carllile met guitarist Les Paul, who was impressed by Carllile's skill and his wife's songwriting, and they recorded enough tracks for two albums at Paul's home studio in Mahwah, New Jersey. Later that year, Carllile (as Thumbs Carlyle) released a duet on Epic with his wife Virginia (as Ginny O'Boyle), "Indian Girl, Indian Boy". 

In 1963, Carllile joined the Wade Ray Five, and Ray's Las Vegas band, but left the following year to join Roger Miller's band, where he stayed until 1972. He appeared on Miller's 1966 NBC-TV show, and performed with him five times on NBC's Tonight Show during the 1960s. He also appeared at the Grammy Awards when Miller swept the country categories in 1964 with "Dang Me", and in 1965 with "King of the Road" (1965), for which Carllile provided the song's signature finger snaps. 

Miller helped him sign with Smash Records, where he released two albums, Roger Miller Presents Thumbs Carllile and All Thumbs in 1965. He released several singles for Smash, including "My Bossa Nova/Candy Girl" (1966). Several tracks he recorded for the label were popular but did not chart, including "Let it Be Me", "Caravan", "No Yesterday", "Theme from Picnic", "Blue Skies", "Stranger On The Shore" and "Hold It". In 1968, Carllile signed with Capitol and recorded the album Walking in Guitar Land. 

In 1986, he moved from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Decatur, Georgia, where Virginia worked in a factory making springs. Carllile underwent surgery that year for colon cancer, which, despite fundraisers, left the family bankrupt. After recovering, he played with his trio, The Indecent 3; performed on Sagebrush Boogie, a weekly program on Atlanta's WRFG-FM; and was a regular at such venues as the Freight Room in Decatur and The Point. Carllile suffered a fatal heart attack on July 31, 1987, at a friend's place in Chattanooga, TN, where he was in town holding a seminar. He was  buried in Decatur Cemetery. 

Carllile's two daughters are also musicians: Kathy Carllile is a blues singer in Atlanta, Georgia, who once led Kathy Carllile and Tabasco, and had a minor hit with "Stay Until the Rain Stops" in 1986 on the Frontline label. She and Carllile were once winners on The Gong Show. Tammy Carllile sang in the Cowboy Boogie Band in Las Vegas and won Nashville's Hall of Fame singing competition; and also sang vocals on albums with her father. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Shannon Byrne’s blog)

 

Bonnie Baker born 1 April 1917

Bonnie Baker (April 1, 1917 – August 11, 1990) was an American singer of jazz and popular music and was known from 1936 to the end of her performing career as Wee Bonnie Baker. Her biggest hit was "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!," recorded with the Orrin Tucker Orchestra in 1939. 

Bonnie with Orrin Tucker

She was born Evelyn Underhill* in Orange, Texas. She attended school in Galveston and Houston. At age 16, during the 1932–1933 school year, she was a day student at Mount de Sales Academy, in Macon, Georgia, which at that time was a Roman Catholic boarding school for girls. She then moved back to Houston where she sang in night clubs. She joined Orrin Tucker's band as a vocalist in 1936, after Louis Armstrong suggested that Tucker recruit her. Tucker gave her the stage name "Wee" Bonnie Baker on account of her height, about 4-foot 11 inches. She had only local fame before joining Tucker's orchestra – wider notability did not occur until she performed at the Empire Room of the Palmer House in Chicago in 1939, when she began to flourish in the South and Pacific Coast. 

Baker’s career with Tucker was uneventful until the runaway success of “Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!” a twenty-year-old World War I-era song which sold over a million-and-a-half copies. Baker’s singing style made her wildly popular in her own right, and she began to receive equal billing with Tucker. Her girlish voice was described as "like a tiny silver bell, soft but tonally true". In 1940, she was voted most popular female band vocalist in Billboard’s annual college poll. Throughout the 1940s, she remained the most highly-imitated singer in show business. She also had success with the songs "You'd Be Surprised", "Billy", "Would Ja Mind?", and "Especially for You". Baker made two Hollywood appearances while with Tucker’s orchestra, including the feature film You’re the One. She shared the cover of Down Beat magazine’s February 15, 1940, issue with pianist and bandleader Joe Sanders. 

She left the Tucker orchestra in February and out on her own in February, Baker’s popularity soared. When Tucker enlisted in the Navy in mid-1942, she turned down an offer to front the band in his absence. As a solo act traveling with her own vaudeville unit and singing with various orchestras, she was making far more money than she could on a band salary. She legally adopted her stage name, Bonnie Baker, on October 9, 1943, in Circuit Court, Chicago, Illinois. 

                    

                Here's "Oh Johnny Oh Johnny Oh!" from above album.

                                  

She then continued with a solo career, singing with the USO (United Service Organizations) during World War II, and appearing regularly on the radio show Your Hit Parade. She also sang with other bands. Baker remained extremely popular through the mid-1940s. 

On January 30, 1943, she made the cover of Billboard and later that year sang several numbers in the Monogram feature film Spotlight Scandals. Baker’s popularity began to decline slightly after the war, though she continued touring and performing on the theater circuit as well as on radio and occasionally television. She recorded solo for the Memo label in 1946 and on Universal in 1948. In 1952, she recorded with Mel Blanc and Billy May on Capitol, singing opposite Blanc’s Porky Pig, Tweety and Sylvester characters and in 1956 she provided vocals for two Chilly Willy cartoons. That same year she released an album, Oh Johnny!, with orchestra conducted by Wilbur Hatch, on Warner Bros. Records.

Baker married four times during the 1930s and 1940s, the first to a man named Lakey in 1937. In October 1940, she and Tucker announced plans to wed. Even after she had left the band, in fall 1942, they apparently still intended to marry. How much of this was just the dreams of a publicity agent is unknown however. In interviews while with Tucker’s band, Baker typically insisted that she had no romantic interests in Tucker. In October 1943, she legally changed her name to her stage moniker and became engaged to a soldier, Lieutenant Johnnie Morse. The two married in December and were still together two years later. In March 1948, she married her manager, Frank Taylor. The couple had a child in October 1948 and divorced in October 1949. 

In spring 1950, Baker married comedy writer Bill Rogers. The pair teamed up, with Rogers playing guitar and writing specialty songs for her. Baker and Rogers continued performing as a team into the 1960s. Baker came to hate her signature song, as audiences always called for it. She grew tired of singing it, estimating that she performed it two thousand times each year. 

By 1975, Baker had married a fifth time, to a man named Gailey, a jazz guitarist and stage-act writer, also known as Billy Rogers. They moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1958 and performed in local clubs, such as Pier 66. She gave up singing in 1965, after a heart attack. By 1976, she was a switchboard operator at a Ft. Lauderdale medical center. She died in a Fort Lauderdale hospital in Florida on August 11, 1990 at the age of 73. 

 (Edited from Wikipedia, Bandchirps & Sun Sentinel) (* other sources give maiden name as Nelson)