1. Mary Joan Okum, known by her performing name Bonnie Lou, was an American musical pioneer, recognized as one of the first female rock and roll singers.
22 Facts About Bonnie Lou
1. 2.
Bonnie Lou is one of the first artists to gain crossover success from country music to rock and roll.
3.
Bonnie Lou was the "top name" on the first country music program regularly broadcast on a national TV network.
4.
Bonnie Lou was one of the first female co-hosts of a successful syndicated television talk show, and a regular musical performer on popular shows in the 1960s and 1970s.
5.
Bonnie Lou "was a prime mover in the first days of rockabilly," and is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
6.
Bonnie Lou learned how to yodel from her maternal grandmother Mary, who had emigrated from Switzerland.
7.
Bonnie Lou started violin lessons when she was five, and her father bought her a "two dollar-and-a half pawnshop guitar" when she was 11.
8.
Bonnie Lou said "Not Country enough" and redubbed her as Bonnie Lou.
9.
Bonnie Lou's contract with KMBC was voided because she was a minor when she signed it.
10.
Once known as Mary Jo, the Yodeling Sweetheart, Bonnie Lou now earned the devotion of listeners which would last the rest of her career.
11.
Bonnie Lou performed regularly with the sister duo she had listened to as a child, the Girls of the Golden West, one of whom was McCluskey's wife.
12.
Bonnie Lou returned to Illinois with Ewins in 1947 and had her only child, Constance, September of that year.
13.
Bonnie Lou told them the safe was on a timer and couldn't be opened at night.
14.
In 1952 the Ewins family returned to Cincinnati and Bonnie Lou resumed work on Midwestern Hayride.
15.
Bonnie Lou continued radio performances until the end of the 1940s.
16.
In 1953, Bonnie Lou signed with her first record company, King Records in Cincinnati, Ohio.
17.
Bonnie Lou soon had top-10 country hits with "Tennessee Wig Walk" and "Seven Lonely Days", each of which sold about 750,000 copies.
18.
Bonnie Lou started recording rock and roll in a style later called rockabilly.
19.
When her contract with King expired, Bonnie Lou could have signed with a major label, but declined since it would have required her moving to New York.
20.
Bonnie Lou, dubbed "Queen of the Hayride", appeared on the program until it ceased production in 1972.
21.
Bonnie Lou died in her sleep on the morning of December 8,2015 at Hillebrand Nursing And Rehabilitation Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, aged 91.
22.
Posthumous tributes to Bonnie Lou were featured by media throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.