Coon Creek Girls
Bands / Ensembles
The Coon Creek Girls (1937–1957) were an all-woman old-time string band, formed in Cincinnati, Ohio, by promoter John Lair for his Renfro Valley Barn Dance radio program. Lair built the group around Lily May Ledford of Powell County, Kentucky, whom he had recruited to WLS radio in Chicago. The original lineup was Lily May Ledford on banjo and fiddle, her sister Rosie Ledford on guitar, Esther "Violet" Koehler on mandolin and Evelyn "Daisy" Lange on bass (as well as possibly Norma Madge Mullins). The band wanted to call itself the Wildwood Flowers, but Lair chose "Coon Creek Girls" to sound more country. The group debuted on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance when it began broadcasting over WLW in Cincinnati on October 9, 1937, and recorded for the Vocalion label in Chicago in March 1938. At Eleanor Roosevelt's invitation, the band played in the East Room of the White House on June 8, 1939, for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Britain. Koehler and Lange left in November 1939, and the band continued as a trio of Ledford sisters: Lily May, Rosie and Minnie, billed as "Black-Eyed Susie." The trio moved with the Barn Dance to Lair's new Renfro Valley facility in Kentucky and stayed until Lily May and Rosie left in 1957, ending the group. In 1979 Lair revived the name for a new all-woman band, the New Coon Creek Girls.