Lily May Ledford

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Lily May Ledford
Birth nameLily May Ledford
Also known asLily May Pennington (married name)
Born(1917-03-17)March 17, 1917
Powell County, Kentucky, U.S.
DiedJuly 14, 1985(1985-07-14) (aged 68)
Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.
GenresAppalachian folk
Instrument(s)Banjo, fiddle
Years activec. 1937–1957, 1968–1983
LabelsGreenhays, June Appal

Lily May Ledford (March 17, 1917 – July 14, 1985) was an American clawhammer banjo and fiddle player.[1] After gaining regional radio fame in the late 1930s as head of the Coon Creek Girls, one of the first all-female string bands to appear on radio, Ledford went on to gain national renown as a solo artist during the American folk music revival of the 1960s. In 1985, she was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship.[2]

Biography

Early life and career

Ledford was born along the banks of the

Red River in rural Powell County, Kentucky in 1917.[1] She was the seventh of fourteen children born to tenant farmer Daw White Ledford and wife Stella May Tackett. Her father taught her to play banjo at a young age, and by age 12 she had learned to play the fiddle.[2] Lily loved the traditional dance tunes, and she often had to sneak off to play at area dances, as her mother considered this type of music to be "old drunkard songs".[3]

In 1936, Ledford won a music competition at

Cincinnati and later moved to Mount Vernon. Ledford and Lair formed the Coon Creek Girls, with Lair providing the band's name, even though there was no such place as Coon Creek, as it was typical for early country music producers to give bands colorful rural-sounding names. The Coon Creek Girls originally consisted of Ledford on banjo and vocals, Ledford's sister Rosie on guitar, Evelyn Daisy Lange on bass, and Esther Violet Koehler on mandolin.[2] The band made its radio debut on October 9, 1937.[1] Lange and Koehler left in 1939, and were replaced by Ledford's sister, Minnie. The group performed at the White House in 1939 for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his guests, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.[5] The group made regular appearances on Renfro Valley Barn Dance until disbanding in 1957.[2]

Folk music revival and later career

In the 1960s, musicologist

Orillia.[3]

In the early 1980s, author

National Public Radio. In 1980, Berea College published Coon Creek Girl,[6] an autobiography Ledford had written in the late 1970s. Ledford stopped performing in 1983, when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Just before her death in 1985, she was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship,[2][3] which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.[7] Ledford inspired a generation of younger folk musicians, including Pete Seeger.[4]

Repertoire

Ledford typically played a five-string banjo in the frailing, or "clawhammer" style taught to her by her father. She also occasionally played the fiddle. Notable recordings include versions of the old world ballad "

Darling Cory", "Jim Along Josey," and "Kitty Clyde". Her fiddle recordings include a rendition of the folk song "Cackling Hen".[8] In the 1970s and early 1980s, Ledford played at a relatively leisurely pace, often stopping to give extensive background information about the songs she was playing.[3]

Discography

Coon Creek Girls

  • Coon Creek Girls: Lily May, Rosie, & Susie (1968, County Records 712)
  • Early Radio Favorites (1982/1983, Old Homestead Records OHCS 142)

Solo albums

  • Banjo Pickin' Girl (1983, Greenhays Recordings GR712)
  • Gems: Lily May Ledford (2000, June Appal Recordings JA 0078D)

Further reading

References

  1. ^ a b c "Lily May Ledford: Appalachian Musician/Singer". www.arts.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e Ron Pen, "Lily May Ledford." Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), p. 1181.
  3. ^ a b c d Cari Norris, Kentucky Folkweb (ed.), Lily May Ledford as Traditional Artist — excerpt Archived December 1, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. 1998. Retrieved: 2009-09-01.
  4. ^
    OCLC 47644303
    .
  5. ^ Folk, Country Music Pioneer Lily May Ledford Dies. Lexington Herald-Ledger, 1985-07-16. Retrieved: 2009-09-01.
  6. OCLC 6225654
    .
  7. ^ "NEA National Heritage Fellowships 1985". www.arts.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. Archived from the original on September 20, 2020. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
  8. ^ Berea College Sound Archives Archived 2009-08-03 at the Wayback Machine. Online database search 2009-09-01.
  9. OCLC 8451848
    .

External links
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