You might find yourself reading the title of this piece and wondering if ol’ Big Geez has gotten a little carried away. But it’s not hyperbole, because ‘America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band’ is exactly what the members of a very popular post-war country group often called themselves, and the description fit like a glove.
The California-based group actually performed under the name ‘The Maddox Brothers and Rose’, and — as you might have guessed — it consisted of a number of siblings from the Maddox family. During the early years, the brothers behind little sister Rose included Cliff, Cal, Don and Fred, but
when Cliff died in 1949 he was replaced by the youngest child, Henry.
The Maddox family had originally traveled from rural Alabama to California during the Depression, following in the footsteps of many of the era’s migrant farm workers. We can only guess at the hardship of the trip, with parents Charlie and Lula dragging five kids along as they hitchhiked and hopped freight trains, but they did eventually settle into the Modesto area and make a new life.
Always a musical family, within a few years the kids were beginning to find work on radio, with 11-year-old Rose front and center. Over the next few years they polished their act while making appearances all over the area, and even though progress was stalled during the war years, the group hit big in the late 1940s. Tackling everything from honky-tonk to boogie-woogie and a few other things too, the group became enormously popular on radio and sold countless records. Their live act was also a real crowd-pleaser, with colorful costumes, corny comedy routines, and lively, rollicking songs.
The group’s success continued well into the 1950s, with huge record sales and appearances in a lot of choice spots like the Grand Ole Opry. They even added some early rock and roll to keep with the changing face of music, but as the decade wound down things began to slow. Rose went on to have some success as a solo singer, but the heyday of ‘America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band’ had passed.
Maddox Brothers and Rose – “Move It On Over”
Geezer Music Club 