The Girls of the Golden West was an American female
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
female
duo, that was popular during the "Western Era" of the 1930s and 1940s. The band comprised two sisters, Mildred Fern Good (April 11, 1913 – May 2, 1993) and Dorothy Laverne Good (December 11, 1915 – November 12, 1967).
They were born in
Mount Carmel, Illinois
Mount Carmel is a city in and the county seat of Wabash County, Illinois, United States. At the time of the 2010 census, the population was 7,284, and it is the largest city in the county. The next largest town in Wabash County is Allendale, po ...
, United States.
Rise to fame
The Girls of the Golden West first entertained family and friends before they worked on a
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...
in
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
,
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
.
In 1933, they moved to the WLS
National Barn Dance
''National Barn Dance'', broadcast by WLS-AM in Chicago, Illinois starting in 1924, was one of the first American country music radio programs and a direct precursor of the ''Grand Ole Opry''.
''National Barn Dance'' also set the stage for other ...
, then the home of country music pioneers
Gene Autry and
Patsy Montana
Rubye Rose Blevins (October 30, 1908 – May 3, 1996), known professionally as Patsy Montana, was an American country music singer, songwriter and actress. Montana was the first female country performer to have a million-selling single with her ...
.
, also at WLS, later worked with the girls in their
recordings. They first started recording for
Bluebird Records
Bluebird Records is a record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of kids' music, blues and jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. It was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced RCA Victor subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebird became known ...
in July 1933.
They named themselves the Girls of the Golden West, taken from the
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
by
Puccini
Giacomo Puccini ( Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long ...
, ''
The Girl of the Golden West''. They started singing songs such as "Put My Little Shoes Away" and "
Ragtime Cowboy Joe
Ragtime Cowboy Joe is a popular western swing song. The lyrics were written by Grant Clarke and the music was composed by Lewis F. Muir and Maurice Abrahams. It was copyrighted and published in 1912 by F.A. Mills.
Artists
The song has been ...
".
The Girls of the Golden West were one of the most popular acts of the 1930s and 1940s, and were one of the few women then found performing country music.
The Girls also had kept up a fictitious story of their life. They would claim they were from
Muleshoe, Texas, though in reality they were farming girls from Illinois.
However, this was all part of the image of the "Western Music" craze. They would normally wear
cowgirl
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...
western-style outfits for their appearances on
television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
s.
Career peak and decline
Girls of the Golden West were pioneers in country music at the time. There were few women then in the genre, excluding
Patsy Montana
Rubye Rose Blevins (October 30, 1908 – May 3, 1996), known professionally as Patsy Montana, was an American country music singer, songwriter and actress. Montana was the first female country performer to have a million-selling single with her ...
, The girls would inspire a whole new breed of country music singers such as
Kitty Wells
Ellen Muriel Deason (August 30, 1919 – July 16, 2012), known professionally as Kitty Wells, was an American pioneering female country music singer. She broke down a barrier to women in country music with her 1952 hit recording " It Wasn't God ...
,
Jean Shepard
Ollie Imogene "Jean" Shepard (November 21, 1933 – September 25, 2016) was an American honky-tonk singer-songwriter who pioneered for women in country music. Shepard released a total of 73 singles to the Hot Country Songs chart, one of which ...
and
Patsy Cline
Patsy is a given name often used as a diminutive of the feminine given name Patricia or sometimes the masculine name Patrick, or occasionally other names containing the syllable "Pat" (such as Cleopatra, Patience, Patrice, or Patricia). Among I ...
. They would also inspire a short-lived girl group,
The Davis Sisters
The Davis Sisters of Philadelphia, PA were an American gospel group founded by Ruth ("Baby Sis") Davis and featuring her sisters Thelma, Audrey, Alfreda and Edna. Imogene Greene joined the group in 1950, and was later replaced by Jackie Verdell ...
. The Girls of the Golden West still remained a popular group, with other songs like "Lonesome Cowgirl" and "Silvery Moon on the Golden Gate", which became their
signature tune
A signature song is the one song (or, in some cases, one of a few songs) that a popular and well-established recording artist or band is most closely identified with or best known for. This is generally differentiated from a one-hit wonder in th ...
.
Later in their careers, they performed on more television shows such as ''
Renfro Valley Barn Dance
''Renfro Valley Barn Dance'' was an American country music stage and radio show originally carried by WLW-AM in Cincinnati, Ohio on Saturday nights. It debuted on October 9, 1937 from the Cincinnati Music Hall and moved to the Memorial Auditorium i ...
'' and ''Boone County Jamboree''.
Toward the end of the 1940s, their careers faded.
They also later moved from WLS to WLW in
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
, Ohio. After this, they occasionally performed and recorded again in 1963.
In 1967 Dolly Good died, and Millie Good followed at the age of 80 in 1993.
See also
*
Western music (North America)
Western music is a form of country music composed by and about the people who settled and worked throughout the Western United States and Western Canada. Western music celebrates the lifestyle of the cowboy on the open ranges, Rocky Mountains, a ...
References
Bibliography
*''Country Music:The Rough Guide''; Wolff, Kurt, Rough Guides; 1st edition (29 June 2000),
External links
AllMusic biography
{{Authority control
American country music groups
Vocalion Records artists