Bonnie Jean Brown (July 31, 1938 – July 16, 2016) was an American country music singer and member of
the Browns
The Browns were an American country and folk music vocal trio best known for their 1959 Grammy-nominated hit, " The Three Bells". The group, composed of Jim Ed Brown and his sisters Maxine and Bonnie, had a close, smooth harmony characteristic ...
, a trio popular in the 1950s.
Biography
Bonnie Jean Brown was born July 31, 1938, in
Sparkman, Arkansas
Sparkman is a city in Dallas County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 427 at the 2010 census, down from 586 in 2000.
History
Sparkman was established between 1911 and 1913 and was named after sawmill owner Lemuel "Pete" Sparkman. In 1 ...
, to Floyd Iron Brown and Birdie Lee Tuberville Brown.
Her parents owned a farm, and her father also worked at a
sawmill
A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...
. While Bonnie was still a child, the family moved to
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Pine Bluff is the eleventh-largest city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Jefferson County. It is the principal city of the Pine Bluff Metropolitan Statistical Area and part of the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff Combin ...
. In 1955, at age 18, she joined her older siblings
Maxine and
Jim Ed, who were already performing as a duo, to form the
musical trio the Browns.
Signed by
RCA Victor in 1956, the trio scored their biggest hit when their
folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
Sociology
*Nation
*People
* Folklore
** Folk art
** Folk dance
** Folk hero
** Folk music
*** Folk metal
*** Folk punk
*** Folk rock
** Folk religion
* Folk taxonomy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fo ...
-pop
single "
The Three Bells
"The Three Bells", also known as "The Jimmy Brown Song", "Little Jimmy Brown", or simply "Jimmy Brown", is a song made popular by the Browns in 1959. The song is an English adaptation of the French language song " Les Trois Cloches" written by Je ...
" reached No. 1 on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100 pop and country charts. The single held the No. 1 spot on the pop charts for 4 weeks, and on the country charts for ten.
After she married Dr. Gene Ring in 1960, she was known as Bonnie Brown Ring.
[
In 1965, the Browns joined the Grand Ole Opry in ]Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...
, and disbanded in 1967 after Bonnie had decided to retire from the music business.[
Unlike her siblings, Bonnie did not pursue a solo music career after the Browns dissolved, though the trio did reunite twice: in the 1980s, and in 2006 for a TV special ''Country Pop Legends.''
In 2015, the trio was inducted into the ]Country Music Hall of Fame
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the world's largest museums and research centers dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of American vernacular music. Chartered in 1964, the museum has amas ...
.Jim Ed Brown
James Edward Brown (April 1, 1934 – June 11, 2015) was an American country singer-songwriter who achieved fame in the 1950s with his two sisters as a member of the Browns. He later had a successful solo career from 1965 to 1974, followed by ...
, died of cancer June 11, 2015, and Maxine died on 21 January 2019.
Death
On September 28, 2015, Bonnie announced that she had been diagnosed with stage 4 adenocarcinoma right lung cancer
Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...
. Brown died of the illness on July 16, 2016, fifteen days before her 78th birthday. She was survived by her sister Maxine Brown; and by daughters Kelly Ring, former co-anchor of the evening news at WTVT-TV in Tampa, Florida,
References
External links
* The Browns at Allmusic.com
The Browns at CMT.com
1938 births
2016 deaths
American women country singers
American country singer-songwriters
People from Dallas County, Arkansas
Singer-songwriters from Arkansas
Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Deaths from cancer in Arkansas
Country musicians from Arkansas
21st-century American women
{{US-country-singer-stub