The Girls of the Golden West was an American female

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

duo, that was popular during the "Western Era" of the 1930s and 1940s. The duo comprised two sisters, Mildred Fern Good (April 11, 1913 – May 2, 1993) and Dorothy Laverne Good (December 11, 1915 – November 12, 1967). They were born in

Mount Carmel, Illinois Mount Carmel is a city in and the county seat of Wabash County, Illinois, United States. At the time of the 2020 census, the population was 7,015, and it is the largest city in the county. The next largest town in Wabash County is Allendale, ...

, United States.

Rise to fame

The Girls of the Golden West first entertained family and friends before they worked on a

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

. In 1933, they moved to radio station

WLS (AM) WLS (890 kHz) is a commercial AM broadcasting, AM radio station in Chicago, Illinois. Owned by Cumulus Media, through licensee Radio License Holdings LLC, the station airs a talk radio format. WLS studios are in the NBC Tower on North Columbus D ...

, where they featured on program

National Barn Dance ''National Barn Dance'', broadcast by WLS (AM), WLS-AM in Chicago, Illinois starting in 1924, was one of the first American country music radio programs and a direct precursor of the ''Grand Ole Opry''. ''National Barn Dance'' also set the stag ...

, then the home of country music pioneers

Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American actor, musician, singer, composer, rodeo performer, and baseball team owner, who largely gained fame by singing in a Crooner ...

and Patsy Montana.

Bradley Kincaid William Bradley Kincaid (July 13, 1895 – September 23, 1989) was an American folk singer and radio entertainer.recordings A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...

. They first started recording for

Bluebird Records Bluebird Records is an American record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of children's music, blues, jazz and swing in the 1930s and 1940s. Bluebird was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebi ...

in July 1933. They named themselves the Girls of the Golden West, taken from the

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

Puccini Giacomo Puccini (22 December 1858 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, s ...

, '' The Girl of the Golden West''. They started singing songs such as "Put My Little Shoes Away" and "

Ragtime Cowboy Joe "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" is a popular western swing song. The lyrics were written by Grant Clarke and the music was composed by Lewis F. Muir and Maurice Abrahams. It was copyrighted and published in 1912 by F.A. Mills. Artists The song has been ...

". The Girls of the Golden West were one of the most popular acts of the 1930s and 1940s, and were one of the few women then found performing country music. The Girls also had kept up a fictitious story of their life. They would claim they were from Muleshoe, Texas, though in reality they were farming girls from the state of Illinois. However, this was all part of the image of the "Western Music" craze. They would normally wear

cowgirl A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

western-style outfits for their appearances on

television program A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via Terrestrial television, over-the-air, Satellite television, satellite, and cable te ...

Career peak and decline

Girls of the Golden West were pioneers in country music at the time. There were few women then in the genre, excluding Patsy Montana, The girls would inspire a whole new breed of country music singers such as

Kitty Wells Ellen Muriel Deason (August 30, 1919 – July 16, 2012), known professionally as Kitty Wells, was an American pioneering female country music singer. She broke down a barrier for women in country music with her 1952 hit recording " It Wasn't God ...

Jean Shepard Ollie Imogene "Jean" Shepard (November 21, 1933 – September 25, 2016), was an American country singer who was considered one of the genre's first significant female artists. Her commercial success ran from the 1950s to the 1970s while also be ...

and

Patsy Cline Patsy Cline (born Virginia Patterson Hensley; September 8, 1932 – March 5, 1963) was an American singer. One of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century, she was known as one of the first country music artists to successfully Cross ...

. They would also inspire a short-lived girl group, The Davis Sisters. The Girls of the Golden West still remained a popular group, with other songs like "Lonesome Cowgirl" and "Silvery Moon on the Golden Gate", which became their signature tune. Later in their careers, they performed on more television shows such as ''

Renfro Valley Barn Dance ''Renfro Valley Barn Dance'' was an American country music stage and radio show originally carried by WLW-AM in Cincinnati, Ohio on Saturday nights. It debuted on October 9, 1937, from the Cincinnati Music Hall and moved to the Memorial Auditoriu ...

'' and ''Boone County Jamboree''. Toward the end of the 1940s, their careers faded. They also later moved from WLS to

WLW WLW (700 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio, commercial news/talk radio station city of license, licensed to Cincinnati, Ohio. Owned by iHeartMedia, WLW is a clear-channel station, often identifying itself as "The Big One". Its studios ...

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, Ohio. After this, they occasionally performed and recorded again in 1963. In 1967 Dorothy "Dolly" Good died, and Mildred "Millie" Good followed at the age of 80 in 1993.

References

Bibliography

*''Country Music:The Rough Guide''; Wolff, Kurt, Rough Guides; 1st edition (29 June 2000),

External links

AllMusic biography
{{Authority control American country music groups Vocalion Records artists

Rise to fame

Career peak and decline

See also

References

Bibliography

External links