Grand Ole Opry member Wilma Lee Cooper passed away Tuesday September 13 at her home in Sweetwater, Tennesee from natural causes. She had been a member of the Opry since 1957 and was 90 years old. Her last solo performance on the Opry was at the Ryman Auditorium on February 24, 2001. Wilma Lee joined the Opry cast at the grand re-opening of the Opry House on September 28, 2010 for a group sing-along.
Wilma Lee was preceded in death by her husband Stoney Cooper and is survived by her daughter Carol Lee Cooper, Hendersonville, Tennessee; granddaughter Vanessa Brusseau and her husband Mark of Hermitage, Tennessee, and granddaughter Shannon Rogers and her husband Mark of Hendersonville, Tennessee. Per Wilma Lee's wishes there will not be a memorial service. She will be remembered for her music and her faith.
Wilma Lee spent nearly her entire life singing and entertaining. Born Wilma Leigh Leary, she began working early as a member of West Virginia's regionally-famed Leary Family. Her celebrated delivery of gospel and devotional songs emerged at the same time. First achieving national prominence in the 1940s performing with her late husband, champion fiddler Stoney (Dale T.) Cooper, Wilma Lee sang and played guitar with a bursting-at-the-seams energy. From the outset, the Coopers had success with story songs, from "The Legend of the Dogwood Tree," "Little Rosewood Casket," and "Sunny Side of the Mountain" for Rich-R-Tone and Columbia Records in the 40s to "Wreck on the Highway" and Philadelphia Lawyer" for Hickory Records in the early 1960s. It was likely Wilma Lee and Stoney's rousing, old-style jubilee hits of the 50s and 60s including "There's a Big Wheel", "This Old House," and "Big Midnight Special" that audiences have responded to most of all. Wilma Lee and Stoney were members of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.
In memory of Wilma Lee Cooper, here is the Opry line up from Saturday February 24, 2001, which was her final solo appearance on the Grand Ole Opry:
6:30
Porter Wagoner (host)
Connie Smith
Bill Carlisle
The Derailers
7:00
Bill Anderson (host)
Tammy Cochran
Mel McDaniel
Allison Moorer
Keith Urban
Jeannie Seely
Eddy Raven
8:00
Jimmy Dickens (host)
WILMA LEE COOPER
Billy Walker
Opry Squaredance Band
Melvin Sloan Dancers
8:30
John Conlee (host)
Holly Dunn
Jim Ed Brown
9:30
Porter Wagoner (host)
The Whites
The Derailers
Mel McDaniel
10:00
Jimmy Dickens (host)
WILMA LEE COOPER
Del Reeves
Tammy Cochran
10:30
Jeannie Seely (host)
Billy Walker
Keith Urban
Opry Squaredance Band
Melvin Sloan Dancers
11:00
Bill Anderson (host)
Holly Dunn
Jimmy C Newman
Eddy Raven
11:30
John Conlee (host)
Ray Pillow
Charlie Walker
Allison Moorer
God Bless Wilma Lee and her family
Wilma Lee continued performing with her group the Clinch Mountain Clan after Stoney's death in March 1977, and was appearing on the Opry reguarly until a stroke suffered on stage in 2001 forced her to cease performing.
When they talk about GRAND ladies ... of the Grand Ole Opry or anywhere else in music, she is, was, and will be one of them.
ReplyDeleteFred in Bismarck here:
ReplyDeleteThank you for giving us the news, Byron. And Michael is right on. I met the Coopers at a show in your neck of the woods, Byron, in 1959 or '60, when they were at the top of their game. A more friendly and gracious couple of people to a starstruck teenager you never saw in your life.
After 50 years Wilma Lee's performance of "Rachel's Guitar" still raises the hair on the back of my neck. Their incredible album, "Family Favorites," from the early 1960s, is on my Top 10-of-All-Time list.
In his prime, Stoney was no mean vocalist himself. On "Sunny Side of the Mountain" he bugles like a big old bull elk.
Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper -- country music at its very finest. Nice to think of them making music together again.
I loved her version of "A Daisy a Day." I also have to chuckle. I loved Stoney--a great singer and entertainer. But I never saw anybody other than Mr. Acuff hold a fiddle more and play it less!
ReplyDeleteI know that we talk about the artists who should be in the Country Music Hall of Fame, and Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper should definitely be in the Hall of Fame. I know that they have been finalists in the past, but I do not know if they have been close to getting elected in recent years.
ReplyDeleteI agree 100% and had hoped for years that the Hall of Fame would induct Wilma Lee and Stoney before it was too late but alas another opportunity for them to do the right thing has forever been lost. As the words of a famous Cooper song go..."useless the flowers that you give after the soul is gone."
ReplyDeleteFred again:
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed, the Coopers are long overdue for the Hall, an institution I would blow up if I could -- speaking only figuratively here, Homeland Security -- and do all over again.
One valuable "due" the Coopers did get: The Bear Family box-set treatment, a treasure that every Coopers lover owes himself.
Wilma Lee deserved a service at the Ryman but instead she will probably quietly be forgotten. I get the idea that Carol Lee wasn't too interested in her during her last years and I'm basing that on a letter I got from Wilma Lee not long after she had her stroke where she mentioned that Carol Lee took many of her things. If that's true, it's a terrible shame for a woman who was once of the nicest and most geninue people I ever met in Country Music. At least now she is at rest.
ReplyDeleteFred again:
ReplyDeleteKnowing nothing of the circumstances, myself, but as one who has been through the decline and relocation of two parents, with the final stop being the nursing home in both cases, I would be inclined to cut Carol Lee some slack.
There is little to do when an old impaired parent is forced to relocate to an apartment or nursing home but for someone to find another home for most of their things ... that, or back up the truck.
I'm sure Wilma Lee had many wonderful keepsakes, most of which would not fit into the Nashville apartment -- at Opryland? -- she had for several years before it was nursing-home time. One certainly hopes Carol Lee took over and protected these.
I do retain a nice mental picture of Wilma Lee and Carol Lee from one of the former's later appearances on the TNN Opry. Wilma Lee was a little shaky at this point; and, at one of those group sings, where everybody is onstage at the same time, one camera angle showed Carol Lee holding W.L.'s hand behind their backs. This I took as a sign of daughterly solicitude and support.
Again, though, Anonymous, I just don't know.
I hope Wilma Lee & Stony gets in the hall of fame in 2012
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice, but I just don't think it is going to happen. The finalist in the veterans category last year, that will probably get strong consideration this year were the Wilburn Brothers, Archie Campbell, The Browns, Elton Britt and Cowboy Copas.
ReplyDelete