"The New Lost City Ramblers with Cousin Emmy" (Folkways)(1968),
Songs
A Home in Old Kentucky,
Bowling Green,
Arkansas Traveler,
...All You Virginia Gals,
Chilly Scenes of Winter,
Dance All Night...,
Graveyard,
...Going 'Cross the Sea,
Johnny Booker,
Cacklin' Hen,
Little Joe,
Lost John,
Ground Hog,
Lonesome Road Blues,
Fisher's Hornpipe,
Mother's Grave,
Old Tim Brooks,
Irish Wash Woman,
Ragtime Annie,
Pretty Little Miss...,
Ruby Are You Mad...?,
Scat Tom Kitty Puss,
Saint Louis Blues,
Wish I Was a Single Girl...,
Little Cabin in the Lane...,
Shortening Bread,
Give the Fiddler a Dram,
Going Down the Road...,
Hard, Ain't It Hard,
Thinking of My Blue Eyes,
Turkey in the Straw,
Knick Knack Song,
Down in the Valley,
Sowing on the Mountain...,
Cat's Got the Measles...,
Timeline
Born on March 14, 1911 as Cynthia May Carver.
Had two other noteworthy family members, Noble ("Uncle Bozo") and Warner Carver, who was part of The Carver Boys. Cousin Emmy began playing banjo with the Carvers on radio broadcasts.
1935 - 1937 she was part of WHAS' Early Morning Show.
In 1936 became the first woman to win the National Old Fiddlers contest in Louisville, KY.*
In 1937, Emmy moved to the WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia, as a part of Frankie Moore’s Log Cabin Boys.
"In 1937, Cousin Emmy caught the attention of a young Louis Jones, later known as Grandpa Jones. In his autobiography, Everybody’s Grandpa, Jones stated that "her five-string picking fascinated me to the extent that I would follow her around the studio to watch and listen. I worried her so much that she finally said, ‘Okay, I’ll show you how it’s done.’*
In 1938, she left Wheeling and returned to WHAS.
By 1938 Emmy had formed her own band, called the Kin Folks, and toured in a Cadillac with four other players. According to music historian Jim Nelson (who worked on the liner notes of the Bear Family CD) "she had some young fellows called the Kissinger Brothers playing and singing with her at this point, as well as Red Herron".
In 1939 Cousin Emmy and Her Kin Folks relocated to Atlanta to become part of the Cross Road Follies, which was broadcast over WSB and WAGA in Atlanta. In addition, Emmy had her own 10:30 program on Friday mornings on WSB.
By the next year, they were on the road again, playing on WHAS and Knoxville, Tennessee’s WNOX.
By 1941, they were at KMOX St. Louis, Missouri, where they had a show that aired twice daily.
By the early part of 1942, Emmy and her group were making transcriptions for coast-to-coast broadcasting.
In 1943 Time magazine did a feature article on Cousin Emmy.
In 1944 Cousin Emmy appeared in the Hoosier Hot Shots' movie "Swing In The Saddle."
During 1944, she played WAVE Louisville and then returned to the WSB Barn Dance in the fall of 1945.
The following year, Emmy moved back to KMOX.
In 1947, under the direction of Alan Lomax, she recorded an album of 78's for Decca entitled Kentucky Mountain Ballads.
In 1955 she appeared in the movie The Second Greatest Sex.
By 1961, Cousin Emmy was appearing at Disneyland.
In 1962 she was aguest on "The Jack Benny Program."
In 1965, Mike Seeger persuaded Emmy to share the bill with his band the New Lost City Ramblers at the Newport Folk Festival.
She also appeared on a TV show, Rainbow Quest, with Pete Seger.
During 1966, Emmy toured with the Ramblers and the Stanley Brothers in Europe.
In 1967 She recorded a live record for Folkways with The New Lost City Ramblers.
In 1971 Buck Owens topped the country charts with a cover of "Ruby Are You Mad".
Cynthia May Carver (Cousin Emmy) pasted away on April 11, 1980.
In 1985, Come All You Virginia Gals was included in the Time-Life album The Women.
In September of 2007, Bear Family Records will release a Cousin Emmy Collection.
SOURCE: *Copied from the Old Time Herald (Volume 8, Number 2)
Movies
Swing in the Saddle,
The Second Greatest Sex,
American Folk & Country Music DVD,
About me: This site is maintained by Mark Hayes, a Cousin Emmy fan.
This mountain music gal might have been born in a log cabin, but she was often known as "the first hillbilly to own a Cadillac." She began recording for Decca in the late '40s, her album winding up a cherished item among folk music revivalists of the '60s. One such outfit, the New Lost City Ramblers, wound up backing up Cousin Emmy on a Folkways record, but she leaves them in the dust. She was born Cynthia May Carver and from the age of seven, she enjoyed being the star entertainer among the children. Her musical ambitions eventually drove her to seek a wider audience than just the neighborhood kids. She finally saved up her money and traveled the difficult distance of 135 miles to the big town of Louisville, where radio station WHAS beckoned. Nobody at the station would listen to her, however, so she went back home and continued singing at events such as bean hullings, quilting parties, and pie suppers. Finally, someone at the aforementioned station caved in and she wound up with her own spot. She still had to make a living doing personal appearances and would typically have to drive 500 miles within a single day to fulfill both the stage and radio commitments. Her radio shows began to pick up sponsors and the country girl was moving on to even bigger towns such as Chicago and St. Louis, where she performed on KMOX. During this time, she was chosen by the City Art Museum of St. Louis as the most-perfect singer of mountain ballads.
Despite her growing fame, she only recorded one single, "Come All You Virginia Gals," and one album for Decca. This recording and her performances with Cousin Emmy & Her Kinfolk, both on-stage and on radio, created an incredibly enthusiastic fan base. Among the classic country players who credit Cousin Emmy with inspiring them to play is Grandpa Jones, who worked with her on WWVA when he was too young to be a grandpa and had no banjo on his knee. The bluegrass pioneers the Osborne Brothers heard her version of "Ruby Are You Mad" on a jukebox and decided to run with it, turning it into their band's signature song. Her original version was finally put back in print via both a CMH anthology, Fair Tender Ladies, and a set of classic Decca recordings released by MCA.
Unlike some old-time music artists, Cousin Emmy also had a bit of a career in Hollywood, appearing in films such as Swing in the Saddle and Under Western Sky. She relocated to Los Angeles during the making of these films and wound up living there for years, raising a set of adopted children and playing at local country music clubs. The members of the New Lost City Ramblers convinced her to record with them in 1967, again resulting in a superior album. A new cycle of gigs involving collaborations with this band were set in motion, including a famous appearance at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles and the Newport Folk Festival. Excerpts from the latter event were released on an anthology collection by Vanguard. She performed with the Clinch Mountain Boys on Rainbow Quest, a series of televised programs of folk music produced by Pete Seeger, and is in Festival, a late-'60s folk festival documentary in which big wigs such as Bob Dylan and Donovan tend to hog screen time. She also toured Europe in the late '60s. An essential aspect of the Cousin Emmy experience is her brassy and even outrageous personality. This puts her in the class of performers such as Uncle Dave Macon or Minnie Pearl. It is certainly not an unheard of stance in country music, but is a contrast from the serious, brooding nature of much Appalachian balladry. Not that she doesn't touch on that, as her haunting song "Graveyard" attests. But she is just as likely to come on-stage dressed in an outlandish costume and begin blowing up a rubber glove for a gag, or producing a harmonica from the valley of her cleavage. Showmanship was always a big deal with her, and she once played almost two dozen different instruments during her show. She also seems to inspire songwriters to write songs -- about her. Singer/songwriter Laura Lind has recorded "Cousin Emmy's Blues," while the band Gallon Drunk has cut "Ruby/Us and Cousin Emmy." ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide
Who I'd like to meet: Friends of Old-time Music
Cousin Emmy w/ Pete Seeger - Turkey in the Straw
Watch Rebekah Weiler, a Cousin Emmy fan, competing at the Old Time Fiddlers' Championship in the Old Time Banjo division.
Looking forward to seeing you at Uncle Dave Macon Days, July 10-12, 2009 in Murfreesboro, TN. 2009 Heritage Award Winner -- Bill and Janice Birchfield of The Roan Mountain Hilltoppers and 2009 Trail Blazer Award Winner -- Old Time Buckdancer, Thomas Maupin. www.uncledavemacondays.com
Thank You for adding me to your friends list. I enjoyed reading your profile as well as your music. I wish you the very best and hope this is a great year for you.
Dear Cousin Emmy Staff! My myspace site has been majorly updated (NEW photos, songs from a promo CD, style, biography, video etc). Feel free to leave a comment! Max Boehner
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