Country singer Wilma Lee Cooper dies

Country singer Wilma Lee Cooper, whose tradition-based lower-home style created a mark on bluegrass music, died Sept. 13 of natural causes in Sweetwater, Tenn. She was 90. Born Wilma Leigh Leary in Valley Mind, West Virginia, Cooper sang together with her family's gospel group the Leary Family within the '30s and '40s. She married the unit's fiddler Dale T. "Stoney" Cooper in 1941. The Coopers broke through in 1947 once they made an appearance on radio's popular WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia. They cut their first records exactly the same year for that small Tennessee label Wealthy-R-Tone, that also launched the very first singles by bluegrass pioneers the Stanley Siblings. These were signed to Columbia from 1949-53, with no success. The duo recorded using their band the Clinch Mountain Clan for that Hickory label within the '50s and '60s. Their greatest hits incorporated "Large Night time Special," a rustic arrangement of Lead Belly's "Night time Special" (No. 4, 1959), a protective cover of countrypolitan singer-songwriter Don Gibson's "There is a Large Wheel" (No. 3, 1959) along with a reading through from the standard "Wreck On the roadInch (No. 8, 1961). The Coopers later briefly recorded for Decca and Starday. They became a member of Nashville's Grand Ole Opry in 1957, and carried out around the popular WSM broadcast until Stoney Cooper's dying in 1977. Wilma Lee later recorded like a soloist for that independent roots labels Rounder and Digital rebel. She upon the market after having suffered a stroke in 2001. She's made it by her daughter Carol Lee, an Opry artist. (Christopher Morris) Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com