In the fourth installment of their campaign to make classic releases available for download, Rebel Records delivers Lily May, Rosie & Susie by The Coon Creek Girls. The music will be available for purchase through all major digital retailers on January 18th.
Female country singers are now commonplace but this was not the case in the late 20s and 30s when the music of the rural south was first becoming a business. Even rarer then were all-girl string bands, yet the few that did exist were so good that one wonders why more such bands weren’t formed. One of the best was The Coon Creek Girls, led by Kentucky-born singer, fiddler, and banjo player Lily May Ledford.
They played on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance radio program, albeit with a few personnel changes, from its beginning in Cincinnati in 1937 until 1957. The band members had since gone on to raise families and work other jobs, but reunited on several occasions in the 1960s during the folk revival. Lily May, Rosie, & Susie was recorded during this era and derives its title from the recording’s lineup: Lily May Ledford accompanied by her sisters Rosie and Susie. Tracks such as “Banjo Picking Girl” feature excellent full string band arrangements and harmony vocals, but perhaps most memorable are numbers such as “Red Rocking Chair,” “East Virginia Blues,” and “Pretty Polly” where Lily May appears alone singing and accompanying herself on banjo.
Lily May, Rosie, & Susie marks the first time a full length Coon Creek Girls album has been made available for digital download, an event not to be underestimated given the group’s profound influence on later string bands and country singers.
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