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.
Albums
"Kentucky Mountain Ballads" (Decca)(1947),
"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)
Swing in the Saddle,
The Second Greatest Sex,
American Folk & Country Music DVD,
"Rainbow Quest" (with Pete Seger),