Artist description Vintage home recordings of three young women singing traditional rounds and catches.

Music Style Traditional Rounds and Catches

Artist History How I found these recordings: I bought a house in Hokes, CA a couple years ago, and in the attic (which still had a bunch of old stuff) I came across a bunch of reel-to-reel tapes, marked only with numbers. Curious, I borrowed the old reel-to-reel tape player that had been gathering dust in my uncle's garage and listened to the tapes. I was surprised to hear a group of young women singing rounds. There was something about them. The tapes are old, the recordings were not that great to start with, and the singers made painful mistakes, but the tapes conjured up an image. I imagined old-fashioned girls in dresses, gathered around an old microphone set up in the living room. Like this is what they did in the evening instead of watching TV in those days. With my uncle's help, I put a few songs on cassette. I took my portable tape player around my new neighborhood to meet my neighbors and see what I could find out. I eventually met an old woman, Livia Long, who used to know the family that lived in my house in the 1940's and 50's, the Coughlams. She said the family had met a tragic end in a car accident on Easter day in the late 50's. The whole family died! They had no real relatives, so the neighbors cleaned out the house (except the attic, I guess!) and dealt with the affairs of the family. I was shocked and saddened to hear this, (especially because I had been hoping that these women were still alive) but I was impressed by the way the neighbors volunteered everything, including the funeral expenses! Mrs. Long told me about the three daughters, who were, pretentiously enough, named Ionia, Doria and Corinthia. She had heard the girls sing many times, but had no idea that they had made recordings. The sound of their voices brought tears to her eyes. I left the tape and tape player with her to enjoy. After some more digging in the attic, I found the greatest thing! A picture of the three girls at a young age practicing with their teacher! According to the Mrs. Long, the oldest one (in the middle) was Corrie, the next one (on the left) was Dorrie and the youngest one (on the right) was Io. Io had the highest voice, and liked to start first. I think that the girls were a lot older when they did the recordings that I have than they are in the photo, but at least I have faces to go with the voices! I haven't found any more pictures or clippings, but I am still looking. (I haven't found their graves yet, either, but it's a big cemetary!) Recently, I thought other people might like to here these recordings, so, I have put all the songs into the computer (with some help from my friend Joan. Thanks, Joan!) I have 28 and a half songs. I don't know how much time the recordings span, so I couldn't say how busy the girls were. I have included here 12 songs that I am sure have no copyright. I found the sheet music for some of the songs in the attic, so I have given you all of the info I have about the source material, some of which is very old! I am glad to be able to bring these quirky recordings to you. They are still a little noisy, crackly and distorted (I will try to clean these recordings up as soon as Joan shows me how), but I hope you enjoy the naive charm of it. It's real hometown American folk music, even if some of the songs are sometimes a little bit "arty" for this amateur trio. -- Alice Fair

Group Members Ionia, Doria and Corinthia Coughlam

Instruments a capella

Location Hokes, CA - USA

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