From: Dik de Heer 
Date: Mon Oct 27, 2003 1:19am
Subject: Born To Be With You : Bonnie Lou
 
BONNIE LOU

Born Mary Jo Kath, 27 October 1924, Talawanda, Illinois

Country and rockabilly performer Bonnie Lou grew up listening 
to Prairie Ramblers recordings featuring the yodeling cowgirl
vocals of Patsy Montana. Bonnie also learned to yodel, both
through those old records and the influence of her Swiss grand-
mother. She also studied violin and guitar as a child. By 16, 
she was singing on a radio show in Bloomington, IL; two years 
later, she was performing as Sally Carson with the Brush Creek
Follies radio variety show, airing each Saturday from KMBC in 
Kansas City. The Brush Creek Follies program was regularly 
broadcast nationwide through the Columbia radio network. This
valuable exposure led Bonnie (or Mary, as she was still called
then) to WLW in Ohio, where station exec Bill McLuskey hired 
her as a singer and yodeler with his Midwestern Hayride country
& western radio program. He was also the one who christened 
Mary with the Bonnie Lou moniker. While with the Hayride, Bonnie
performed regularly with the Girls of the Golden West, a cowboy 
yodeling combo she used to hear on WLS as a child.
While a few of her radio performances were cut to acetate and
eventually released, it wasn't until the 1950s that Bonnie had any
real success as a recording artist. Signing with the local Cincinnati
label King in 1953, Bonnie had country hits with "Seven Lonely Days"
and "Tennessee Wig Walk", both of which made the Top 10 in that
year.
Seven Lonely Days! How well I remember the song. It was played
frequently on Dutch radio, not only in the year it came out, but for
many years after that. I wouldn't know if this was the Bonnie Lou
version or the Georgia Gibbs cover, which went to # 5 on the pop
charts. Maybe both. There were one or two Dutch covers ("Zeven
Dagen Lang") and my older sister bought the sheet music and 
played it on the piano.
"Tennessee Wig Walk" also did well in Europe, climbing to # 4 in
the UK in 1954, on Parlophone.
When the rockabilly sound hit, Bonnie recorded "Daddy-O" for King;
the single went to # 14 on the Billboard charts in 1955-1956. The Rusty
York duet "Lah Dee Dah" followed in 1958. After another uneventful duet
with York, Bonnie left King for another Cincinnati local, Fraternity. There 
she released several singles, though none found the success her early 
work for King had. "Friction Heat" is a good rocker, available on the Ace
CD "All-American Rock 'n' Roll : The Fraternity Story, Vol. 2 (Ace 822).
Bonnie also continued to work with the Midwestern Hayride, which by 
this point had spun off the television program Louisiana Hayride. She 
eventually retired from the business and settled in Cincinnati with her
husband, Mort.
Bonnie's choice to work and live in Cincinnati prevented her from finding
the nationwide fame that a contract with a major label would have.
However, she was a prime mover in the first days of rockabilly, and
has seen many of her early recordings reissued. 

CD: Doin' the Tennessee Wig Walk : Best of King (Westside WESF 102).
Released in 2000. 26 tracks.
There's also a Dutch bootleg, "Bonnie Lou Sings" (Globe, 31 tracks),
which mixes King and Fraternity recordings.