Covering classics like “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” with the help of bluegrass big guns like Don Reno and Bill Monroe, Rose’s expressive voice was as well suited for the high lonesome as it was for proto-rockabilly. In the 1960s, Rose turned her gaze towards the folk revival and bluegrass craze, releasing Rose Maddox Sings Bluegrass. The band broke up in the late 1950s Rose went solo with some help from Cal, and the remaining family members continued on with their own band that quickly disintegrated. Maybe they didn’t raise the same gender issues as Rose, but it’s damn entertaining and miles better than those country artists calling themselves “hillbillies” on commercial radio and CMT, their clothes carefully chosen by stylists, their teeth whitened and skin spraytanned.
When the Brothers took the lead vocals, they stuck towards goofy novelty songs such as “Ugly and Slouchy”. When Sister Rose sings “Just get yourself a handsome man and sue for alimony”, she makes divorce sound a whole lot better than the drudgery of marriage, a theme reiterated in “I Wish I Was a Single Girl Again”. “(Pay Me) Alimony” is a delightfully catchy song about the joys of being a gold-digger, marrying a man only to leave him and lead a single girl’s “life of glory” with some extra money in her pocketbook. But 60 years ago, they were incredibly groundbreaking, and paved the way for outspoken female singers like Loretta Lynn. In addition to singing numerous covers, the Maddox Brothers and Rose recorded original songs that would be considered controversial even today. Oldest brother and mandolin player Cliff died in 1949 and was replaced by 21-year old Henry, the youngest of the Maddox children. The majority of the Maddox men were drafted into service during World War II, putting the band on hiatus, but returned in 1946 and picked up right where they left off, performing rowdy country music dressed in retina-searing stage attire, punctuating lyrics with bits of yokel humor, laughter, and the occasionally bawdy comment. Rose, barely 11 years old, was the band’s requisite “girl singer”, singing that hillbilly music with a raw voice that sounded as though it belonged to a grown woman. By 1937, the trio of Rose, Fred, and Cal had finagled a furniture store sponsorship and an early morning radio show. In 1933 the Maddox family (two sharecropper parents and their children Cliff, Cal, Fred, Don, Rose, and Henry) migrated from their Alabama home to California, attempting to eke out a living as fruit pickers during the Depression. While these inductees are extremely talented, they’ve not had anywhere near the monumental influence on multiple genres (country, rockabilly, and rock ‘n’ roll) that the Maddoxes have. Yet they’ve been ignored by the Country Music Hall of Fame in favor of inducted artists like Vince Gill and Alabama.
“America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band” not only produced some of the best music this country has ever seen, but were also one of the progenitors of rockabilly.
What’s the greatest sin perpetrated by the country music monolith? Hank Williams’ dismissal from the Grand Ole Opry? Columbia Records dropping Johnny Cash? Giving Rascal Flatts a record deal at all? These are all egregious, yes, but pale in comparison to the industry’s continued ignorance of the Maddox Brothers and Rose.
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