LEGENDS OF COUNTRY MUSIC: Girls of the Golden West

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As Millie and Dolly grew into teenagers, they found that harmony singing came naturally; Dolly would sing lead, and Millie harmony. “I’d never sing solos,” Millie explained, “but when I hear a note, I hear the harmony note to it. I got that gift from my mother.” Soon the girls were broadcasting over St. Louis station KNOX. At first, they used their real family name—Goad, not Good—but found that it was easily garbled over the air, everything from “Goat” to “Gold.”

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A radio executive named Walter Richards came up with the name Girls of the Golden West, derived from an old cowboy story by Bret Harte and a subsequent popular opera by Puccini in 1910. They spent a short time in Kansas working on the notorious “border station” XER (which then had its studios in Kansas and transmitter in Mexico). Here they began attracting bushels of mail, but left when they learned that a male act on the same show was getting ten times more salary than they were.

They returned to Illinois, found a manager who sensed how unique their music was, and soon got a job on WLS in Chicago. Though they were barely out of their teens, the Girls felt at home in the family-type atmosphere of the Chicago station. And though there were precious few women acts in the budding world of professional country music, WLS had more than its share of them. “WLS was a big country station then,” recalled Millie. “They had the Three Little Maids—the Overstake sisters—and Linda Parker, and another trio named Winnie, Lou, and Sally, and then Lulu Belle, and later Patsy Montana.”

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Though the sisters had grown up singing old pop and sentimental songs as opposed to cowboy songs, they soon began adopting a western image—one that seemed to be working so well for fellow WLS singers Gene Autry and Smiley Burnett. They toured with Gene, and on some of the tours, Smiley, who helped Gene with a lot of his songs, would help the Girls try their hands at originals. Millie specifically remembers Smiley helping her with the first song she ever wrote, “Two Cowgirls on the Lone Prairie.” Along with the name and songs came a series of lovely custom-made cowgirl costumes. “We did make them ourselves,” says Millie.

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