LOOKIN' IN ON SKEETER & RALPH


from Country Song Roundup, February 1963


  The Emerys, better known and Skeeter Davis and Ralph Emery, RCA Victor and Liberty recording artists, top girl country singer and #1 country disc jockey, are really just two plain country folks. Singing country songs comes natural for them because they know and understand country life. They were both raised on a farm and shortly after their marriage a couple of years ago, bought a small farm in Ridgetop, Tennessee, some twenty miles outside the city of Nashville, Tennessee. With Ralph doing all night disc jockey chores for WSM, where for the last two years he has been voted the #1 country and western disc jockey of the nation, and with Skeeter making in and out of the city trips on personal appearances, the inconvenience of living on a farm prompted Ralph and Skeeter to sell their farm and move to a very spacious and lovely, four bedroom, three bath, colonial home in the newly opened Eddy Arnold Iriquois Estates, just outside Nashville in Brentwood, Tennessee.

  These photographs (click here for life-size reproduction of this magazine article) show the moving of Mr. and Mrs. Emery and even though some of their special ordered furniture and draperies have not arrived as yet, the Country Song Roundup photographer captured these photographs for posterity.

  Being a housewife, keeping the home tidy, cooking the meals, as well as being one of the top girl singers in the country and western field today, doesn't seem to slow Skeeter's ambition and pace, nor does it cramp her style.

  Her elegant new home in Brentwood, Tennessee hasn't let Skeeter forget the past, however, and she still remembers her childhood days when she wanted to be a country music singer. Since then she has scored many successes on her way to fame in the country music world. In 1958, she was voted "The Most Promising Country Female Vocalist of the Year" by Cash Box. Two years later she won an award from Music Reporter with her outstanding hit and own composition "I'm Falling Too" as one of the Top Ten Hits. This was one of the first of the traditional answer songs, written as a reply to another song. In this case, it was Hank Locklin's "Please Help Me, I'm Falling." Her real name is Mary Frances Penick, and she was born in a small Kentucky farm town.

  On her recent hit "The Final Step," the lass comes up with a real pretty item about the final step of getting married. The tune's top drawer lyrics coupled with an authority filled reading by Skeeter give it a good chance of making popular record charts. Skeeter and Ralph should find themselves moving, not only into a new home, but towards greater success in the country-western field.




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