Molly O'Day (singer)

Molly O'Day
Birth name	Lois LaVerne Williamson
Also known as	Dixie Lee, Mountain Fern
Born	July 9, 1923, Pike County, Kentucky, US
Died	December 5, 1987(1987-12-05) (aged 64), Huntington, West Virginia, US
Genres	Country
Occupations	Country artist
Instruments	Guitar, banjo
Years active	1940s – 1950s
Notable instruments
Guitar, banjo

Molly O'Day (July 9, 1923 – December 5, 1987) was an American country music vocalist who had some degree of fame and commercial success in the late 1940s. Despite her short recording career, 5 years, she became a legend in her own lifetime. Molly is also the cousin of former burlesque dancer/stripper Blaze Starr.

Early life

Lois LaVerne Williamson was born on a farm in Pike County, Kentucky, as the daughter of Joseph and Hester Williamson. Her father Joseph supported the family as a coalminer. Neither of her parents played music but Lois got together with her two brothers, Cecil and Joe, to practice singing and playing. Lois and her two brothers, who called themselves Skeets and Duke, began performing at local dances. In 1939 Skeets was hired to perform in a radio band: Ervin Staggs and His Radio Ramblers at WCHS, Charleston, West Virginia. One of the more famous members of the group was Johnnie Bailes. That same year Molly also joined the Radio Ramblers as a vocalist under the pseudonym Mountain Fern. She also worked with a banjoist called Murphy McClees and changed her name to Dixie Lee. Within a couple of months, she and her two brothers quit and moved to Williamson, West Virginia, to perform at a local radio station. In 1940 Lois and her two brothers moved to Beckley, West Virginia, to join the Happy Valley Boys led by Johnnie Bailes. The band didn't make much money so it disintegrated in the fall of 1940.

Professional career

Lois, now unemployed, applied for the position as a vocalist in the band Lynn Davis and His Forty-Niners, who had performed on WHIS in Bluefield, West Virginia for the past four years. A few months later, on April 5, 1941, Lynn Davis and Lois Williamson were married. The Forty-Niners appeared on several locations in the southeast and during one gig in Birmingham, Alabama, Hank Williams performed with the group. In 1941 Lois changed her name to Molly O'Day since there already existed another singer named Dixie Lee. After a couple of years, in 1945, Lynn decided to change the band's name to the Cumberland Mountain Folks. Since World War II had come to an end, people were eagerly looking for entertainment and the new band became a hot act. In the summer of 1946, the head of Acuff-Rose, Fred Rose heard Molly sing Tramp on the Street, a Grady Cole song she learned from Williams. Rose almost immediately arranged a recording contract with Columbia Records. Molly O'Day & The Cumberland Mountain Folks made their first recordings on December 16, 1946. On these first recordings, bluegrass legend Mac Wiseman appeared on bass. During her first years as a recording artist Molly O'Day's popularity increased but she started to have doubts about her life's choice. By 1951 she had made her last recording session for Columbia Records.

Later years

Although Molly O'Day recorded albums for Bob Mooney's Rem label (later reissued on Starday) and GRS Records in the 1960s, she preferred to sing in churches and do evangelistic work. Both the Smithsonian Institution and Ralph Stanley tried without success to get her back onstage. In February 1974, Molly and Lynn started a program on a Christian radio station in Huntington, West Virginia featuring gospel recordings.

Death

In the 1980s her health began to deteriorate after she was diagnosed with cancer. She died on December 5, 1987, aged 64, at the Cabell Huntington Hospital in Huntington, West Virginia. She was survived by her husband.

External links

• New York Times obituary
• Los Angeles Times obituary

Source

• Ivan M.Tribe, Liner Notes, Booklet, Bear Family Records.

Persondata
Name	Oday, Molly
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	July 9, 1923
Place of birth
Date of death	December 5, 1987
Place of death