Wilma Lee Cooper
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Wilma Lee Cooper (born Wilma Lee Leary, February 7, 1921 in Valley Head, West Virginia), is a bluegrass-based country music entertainer. As Wilma Lee Leary she sang in her youth with her family's gospel music group, The Leary Family, which included her parents and sisters. The Leary Family recorded for the Library Of Congress in 1938.
In 1939, Wilma Lee Leary married the fiddler and vocalist Dale T. "Stoney" Cooper, who was at the time a musical accompanist of the Leary Family, and the duo formed their own bluegrass group, "Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper and the Clinch Mountain Clan". They were regulars for ten years on WWVA's rival program to the Grand Ole Opry Wheeling Jamboree beginning in 1947 before joining the Grand Ole Opry itself in 1957.
Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper had remarkable record success in the late 1950s and early 1960s on Hickory Records given both their bluegrass sound (which has rarely been so commercially successful) and the damage rock-n-roll was doing to country music's popularity at the time. They scored seven hit records between 1956 and 1961, with four top ten hits in Billboard, notably Big Midnight Special and There's a Big Wheel. They remained connected to the Leary Family tradition as well, recording popular gospels songs like Tramp on the Street and Walking My Lord Up Calvary's Hill.
Stoney Cooper passed away in 1977 but Wilma Lee stayed on the Opry as a solo star and on occasion recorded an album for a bluegrass record label. She remained an Opry favorite and regular performer, but in 2001 she suffered a stroke while performing on the Opry stage. The stroke ended her performing career, but Cooper defied doctors who said she would never walk again and has since returned to the Opry to greet and thank the crowds.
Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper's daughter, Carol Lee Cooper, is the lead singer for the Grand Ole Opry's backup vocal group, The Carol Lee Singers.
