March 19, 1928

Henry Ford Maddox, the youngest sibling of members of the country band Maddox Brothers and Rose, was born in Boaz. Known as “America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band,” the Maddox siblings – Fred, Cal, Cliff, Don, Henry and Rose – migrated with their sharecropping parents to California in 1933 to escape the Great Depression. The siblings began playing in honky-tonks and on the radio, with Rose singing lead at age 11, and won the 1939 Sacramento State Fair hillbilly band competition to become the state’s best hillbilly band. The band played material ranging from classic folk and country standards to swing and early rock and roll and remained popular into the 1950s. Rose Maddox went on to have a successful solo career.

Read more at Modesto Radio Museum.

Maddox Brothers and Rose. (Photo courtesy of the Modesto Radio Museum)

Maddox Brothers and Rose. (Photo courtesy of the Modesto Radio Museum)

In what we believe was Rose’s last public appearance in Modesto, she performed at KTRB’s 50 years of country music celebration held at the California Ballroom in Modesto on December 5th, 1987. (Photo courtesy of the Modesto Radio Museum; Elmer (Smokey Silver) and Phyllis Gunkle)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.