Customer Reviews

Doin the Tennessee Wig Walk

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I learned about Bonnie Lou from the fine Finding her Voice: the Illustrated History of Women in Country Music. That book is a good source to also find a bit about Bonnie Lou and has a beautiful picture of her not featured in the linear notes.
Bonnie was not rockbilly in terms of a Janis Martin/Wanda Jackson type style. But she was a fun artist targeted more towards the teen market. The country sound with Bonnie Lou is more with the twang in her voice than her music though there are some exceptions throughout.
My favorites in the cd are the silly tunes especially "Dancing in my Socks", where to compensate for her boy's shortness, she'll make him feel better by dancing in her socks. Also Barnyard Hop is pretty catchy too. Her "Daddy O" is good but was covered even better later by the Fontane Sisters. The only sad thing is Bonnie Lou's best rockabilly performance "Friction Heat" was on another label and therefore not on this disc. :(

As an avid collector of old country music 45's, I recently
bought a large stack of mint condition 45's from the 50's.
Some of these were by a woman called Bonnie Lou. I like them
immediately and therefore went out and bought this cd. Modern
artists that claim to be "country" need to listen to this music
and get a sample of what real country music is all about.
A very enjoyable cd!

I learnt Bonnie Lou's music from Uncle Ray program on Cathay Pacific. The picture of this CD should be around 50'. I believe everybody over 40 should know the song "Seven lonely days"

Bonnie Lou's lack of commercial success [just two Country hit singles and one on the Billboard Pop Hot 100] is attributable more to the fact that, by personal choice, she opted to remain based in and around the Cincinnati. Ohio area rather than relocate to the bastion of Country music, Nashville. She also never latched onto one of the major labels, any one of which might have done a better job of promoting her music, such as Capitol, Columbia, or Decca.

Born Mary Kath on October 27, 1924 in Towanda, Illinois, her earliest influence, thanks to radio station WLS in Chicago, was the original yodeling cowgirl herself, Patsy Montana, and by age 16 Mary was doing her own yodeling on a Bloomington, Illinois radio station. In 1942 she changed her stage name to Sally Carson and began performing every Saturday with The Brush Creek Follies on KMBC out of Kansas City, exposure that brought her voice to national attention since the show was picked up by CBS.

From there, still primarily a yodeler, she progressed to WLW in her native Ohio and the Midwestern Hayride show where, singing with The Girls Of The Golden West, she also received a new name -Bonnie Lou. She would also remain with that show for 20 solid years.

In 1953 Bonnie landed a recording contract with the King label where she did a Country cover of the # 5 Georgia Gibbs pop hit, Seven Lonely Days. This reached a lofty # 7 Country in late May b/w Just Out Of Reach [Of My Two Empty Arms] - a tune Solomon Burke would cover in 1961 and take to # 6 Adult Contemporary/# 7 R&B/# 24 Billboard Hot 100. Two months later she went even higher [# 6] with Tennessee Wig Walk b/w Hand-Me-Down Heart which, for reasons known only to them, Westside chose to leave out of a 26-track compilation.

Although that would be it for Country charters, Bonnie Lou did have one hit single left in her, and that came in late 1955 when, still with King, her version of the rockabilly tune Daddy-O hit # 14 on the Billboard Pop Top 100 [b/w Dancing In My Socks], just losing out to the Dot hit by The Fontane Sisters [# 11]. Other attempts at the rockabilly sound, however, failed to click. including a duet with Rusty York covering the Billy & Lillie hit in 1958, La Dee Dah.

A subsequent switch to Fraternity Records failed to produce a hit either, but she still toiled on the Midwestern Hayride which had since branched out to television as The Louisiana Hayride. When her run with the program ended she left the business.

I understand that Bear Family of Germany also produced a compilation of her work which may include the missing B-side mentioned above, given their penchant for turning out multi-disc sets for artists with relatively few hits. However, yhis one from Westside is likely much cheaper, and it does give you all three of her hits in quality sound, and provides decent background note.

how can i pay to you
i,m from holland
here in holland is no cd of bonnie lou