Nickname of "Stoney". Country music singer with his wife, Wilma Leigh Leary Cooper.
COOPER, Stoney and Wilma Lee
Wilma Lee Leary (b 7 Feb. '21, Valley Head WV), Dale T. Cooper (b 16 Oct. '18, Harmon WV) Leading performers of authentic mountain music. Wilma Lee was in family gospel group the Leary Family; young fiddle player Stoney joined '39, they married '41, left group '47 as duo. Featured on WWVA Wheeling Jamboree '47--57; signed to Columbia, success with 'Tramp On The Street', 'Walking My Lord Up Calvary Hill', 'The Legend Of Dogwood Tree'. Signed to Hickory '55, joined Grand Ole Opry '57; had bigger hits 'Come Walk With Me' '58, 'Big Midnight Special', 'There's A Big Wheel' '59, cover of Roy Acuff classic 'Wreck On The Highway' '61. Joined Decca '65, remained popular act until Stoney's death. Wilma Lee carried on with daughter Carol Lee Snow (married to Hank Snow's son Jimmie Rodgers Snow and leader of the Carol Lee Singers) and Clinch Mountain Clan performing old- time bluegrass and mountain songs. LPs incl. There's A Big Wheel '59 on Hickory, Wilma Lee And Stoney Cooper '77 on DJM, A Daisy A Day '80 on Leather, Early Recordings '82 on County, Wilma Lee Cooper '84 on Rounder.

[see bio in notes - ccs]

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Birth: 
Oct. 16, 1918
Death: 
Mar. 22, 1977

Musician. Born in Harman, West Virginia, he was a master country fiddler and vocalist known as Stoney Cooper. Together with his wife Wilma Lee Leary, they were known as Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, one of the biggest country music acts of the 1940s through the 1960s. In 1948, Cooper signed a recording contract with Columbia and they were also a staple of the Grand Ole Opry for over 20 years. (bio by: John "J-Cat" Griffith) 
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6966

Country singer
B I O G R A P H Y
Wilma Lee Cooper is officially the first and foremost woman in Bluegrass and traditional mountain music. In 1974, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC honored her as the "First Lady of Bluegrass Music" at an institution-sponsored folk festival. Today many of her songs are preserved in the Smithsonian's Archives of the Performing Arts Division, as well as the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Music and the Harvard University Library of Music.

Wilma Lee is a rarity in a practically all-male form of music. Also rare and unique is her powerful, clear, and true singing voice, backed by her big D-45 Martin guitar, the fiddle, five-string banjo, dobro guitar and bass.

Born Wilma Leigh Leary, she grew up in the wild and beautiful mountains of West Virginia. Her family was a well-known music group - the "Leary Family" - who performed at Bluegrass and folk Festivals. About the same time she got her degree in banking from Davis and Elkins College, she met and married another traditional performer, Dale T. Cooper. As "Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper," they created a team that was to make an important mark on the history of Country Music. Both skillful musicians and songwriters as well as singers, they recorded such classics as "Tramp On The Street," "Walking My Lord Up Calvary's Hill" and "The Legend Of The Dogwood Tree" for Columbia. They continued their success on the Hickory label in the 1960s with "Come Walk with Me," "Big Midnight Special" and "There's A Big Wheel."

"I sing just like I did back when I was growing up in those West Virginia mountains. I've never changed. I can't change. I couldn't sing any other way," Wilma Lee says. "I would say my style is just the old mountain style of singing. I am traditional Country. I'm a Country singer with the mountain whang to it." She notes that she sings a lot of story songs, and if listeners don't understand the words to that type of song, they miss the story. "So, when I sing, I try to speak my words as plainly as I can, so folks will know what I am saying."

Following Stoney's death on March 22, 1977, Wilma Lee assembled a talented group of young musicians, and with "The Clinch Mountain Clan," she continued to perform. She is intensely proud of their character and integrity as well as their musicianship, and she never fails to introduce them on the Opry by name, adding emphatically, "I'm proud of every one of 'em."

Until sidelined by illness in 2001, Wilma Lee was still bringing the traditional music to the Opry stage, often performing with her daughter Carol Lee, who leads the "Carol Lee Singers," the group that provides the Opry's backup vocals. Both the Smithsonian and her fans everywhere have proclaimed her as one of the great singers of the traditional mountain music. Her songs - sad, happy and plaintive - take you back to the rugged slopes, the clean mountain air, and the lush meadows of the best of West Virginia.

HITS
* Big Midnight Special
* Come Walk With Me
* There's A Big Wheel
* Wreck On The Highway
* Walking My Lord Up Calvary's Hill
* The Legend Of The Dogwood Tree
* This Ole House
* Tramp On The Street


A L B U M S
Title
Year/Label/Format
Sacred Songs -1960 
There's A Big Wheel -1960 
Family Favorites -1962 
Songs Of Inspiration -1963 
Sunny Side Of The Mountain -1966 
Sing -1966 
Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper -1976 
Stoney Cooper & Wilma Lee Sing The Carter Family's Greatest Hits -1977 
A Daisy A Day -1980 
Wilma Lee Cooper -1981 
White Rose -1984 
Walking My Lord Up Calvary 's Hill -1988 
Wilma Lee & Co. -1990 
Classic Country Favorites -1996 
God Gave Noah The Rainbow Sign -1996 
Very Best Of Wilma Lee And Stoney Cooper -2002 

http://www.opry.com/m_info/curcast/asp/profile.asp?memID=96

2001 NACMAI Hall of Fame
WILMA LEE COOPER When historians search for the people who represent the birth of a creation...music will rely entirely on it's legends who founded these creations...Wilma Lee Cooper is truly one of these living legends. Wilma Lee Cooper is called: "The First Lady of Bluegrass" and "An Authentic Mountain Singer" by Harvard University.

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Wilma Lee Cooper, Grand Ole Opry Singer, Dies at 90
By BILL FRISKICS-WARREN, NY Times
Published: September 18, 2011

Wilma Lee Cooper, a perennial favorite with the Grand Ole Opry and a member, with her husband, Stoney, of a popular tradition-steeped country singing duo, died on Tuesday at her home in Sweetwater, Tenn. She was 90.

Her death was confirmed by Darlene Bieber, a spokeswoman for the Grand Ole Opry.
Ms. Cooper was a repository of the durable mountain music of her native Appalachia, an amalgamation of styles rooted in old-time ballads and fiddle tunes, rousing gospel shouting and sentimental parlor songs. Her music has often been labeled bluegrass, but Ms. Cooper, whose clarion alto was well suited to the noisy auditoriums and schoolhouses in which she and her husband performed in their early career, cultivated a more raw, forceful approach than that typically heard in bluegrass.
“My style is just the old mountain style of singing,” Ms. Cooper said, explaining the difference in a 1982 interview in Bluegrass Unlimited magazine. “I am traditional country. I’m a country singer with the mountain whang to it.”
Though staunchly traditional, Ms. Cooper’s approach to performing nevertheless proved flexible enough to incorporate material from contemporary songwriters. She and her husband had their highest-charting country hit — it reached No. 3 — with a version of “There’s a Big Wheel,” a song written by Don Gibson, who is best known for composing and recording the swooning country ballads “Sweet Dreams” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” Another of the couple’s Top 10 hits came with a rollicking adaptation of the blues singer Lead Belly’s “Midnight Special,” released under the title “Big Midnight Special” in 1959.
One of Hank Williams’s favorite singers, Ms. Cooper, whose robust, full-throated vocals drew comparisons to Roy Acuff, was featured on lead vocals, acoustic guitar and, on occasion, banjo and piano on the couple’s recordings. Credited to Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper and the Clinch Mountain Clan, their performances also spotlighted Mr. Cooper on vocals and fiddle.
Wilma Leigh Leary was born Feb. 7, 1921, in Valley Head, W.Va. The oldest of three daughters, she grew up singing gospel music with her parents and sisters in the Leary Family Singers, a group that was selected to represent West Virginia at a folk festival organized by Eleanor Roosevelt in Washington in 1938. While in the nation’s capital the Learys also recorded for the Library of Congress.
The next year the family hired Ms. Cooper’s future husband, Dale T. Cooper — better known as Stoney — to play fiddle for them. The couple were married in 1941. In 1942 Ms. Cooper gave birth to their only child, Carol Lee, who later went on to sing on her parents’ recordings and lead the Carol Lee Singers, longtime background vocalists at the Grand Ole Opry. She survives, as do two granddaughters and four great-grandchildren.
Following a break from performing after the birth of their daughter, the Coopers returned to the road as a duo and sang on radio shows in Arkansas, Nebraska, Illinois and North Carolina. They began their decade-long residency on WWVA radio in Wheeling, W.Va., in 1947. They also made several recordings for the small Rich R Tone label that year and later signed with Columbia Records, where they stayed until 1953 before moving to Hickory Records, where they had their greatest commercial success.
In 1957 they moved to Nashville to join the cast of the Grand Ole Opry, where they performed together until Mr. Cooper’s death in 1977. Ms. Cooper went on to release several solo albums, including projects for the Rebel and Rounder labels, and continued to appear with the Opry.
In 1994 the International Bluegrass Music Association presented Ms. Cooper with its Award of Merit. In 2001 the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America inducted her into its Preservation Hall of Greats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/arts/music/wilma...nger-dies-at-90.html

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Wilma Lee Cooper obituary
Country musician considered the first lady of bluegrass
The Guardian

Wilma Lee Cooper and Stoney Cooper in the 1950s. They remained on the Grand Ole Opry's roster for some 20 years. Photograph: Frank Driggs Collection/Getty Images
The husband-and-wife act was a staple feature of country music in the 1930s and 40s. When Wilma Lee Leary and Stoney Cooper, two youngsters from rural West Virginia, married and went on the road together in the early 40s, they were following a path beaten before them by the Chicago radio teams of Lulu Belle and Scotty Wiseman, and Bob Atcher and Bonnie Blue Eyes. But Wilma Lee, who has died aged 90, was of sterner musical stock, and instead of winsomeness or rustic comedy, she offered a mountain voice as hard as the coal of her native state. For almost 30 years, she and Stoney would be one of the most popular acts in traditional country music.
Born in Randolph County, West Virginia, Wilma Lee began singing as a child, in a family group with her parents and younger sisters. By 1938, the Leary Family Singers were well known enough to appear in Washington DC at the National Folk festival. With them was a young fiddler, Dale Troy "Stoney" Cooper, who took the job, he confessed later, chiefly in order to hang out with three attractive teenage girls. Three years later he and Wilma Lee began several years' apprenticeship on the country music circuit, she playing guitar or banjo, he the fiddle, giving personal appearances and broadcasting on stations in Nebraska, Indianapolis and Chicago before coming home in 1947 to West Virginia and the vastly popular Saturday-night Jamboree on the WWVA radio station in Wheeling, where they would settle for a decade.
Meanwhile, they were making popular recordings of pious or nostalgic songs such as Thirty Pieces of Silver, The Legend of the Dogwood Tree, Walking My Lord Up Calvary Hill and Sunny Side of the Mountain. In the words of Mary A Bufwack and Robert K Oermann, historians of women in country music, Wilma Lee "took Appalachian vocal fervour and threw it into overdrive, creating a spine-tingling new female country sound, a throbbing, sobbing, thrilling, chilling delivery that would influence stylists for years to come".
In 1957, their value enhanced by their recent hit Cheated Too, they were invited to join the cast of the Grand Ole Opry and moved to Nashville. They had further hits in 1959 with There's a Big Wheel and Big Midnight Special. They remained on the Opry roster for some 20 years, though by the 70s Stoney's health was failing and Wilma Lee generally fronted their band, the Clinch Mountain Clan, alone, as she continued to do after he died in 1977. She still had family close by, because her daughter Carol Lee, who had begun performing with her parents at the age of four, was now leading a vocal backing group on the Opry, the Carol Lee Singers.
Recognised as one of the most authentic mountain voices surviving in country music, Wilma Lee was asked to record her repertoire for the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, which in 1974 honoured her as "the first lady of bluegrass". During the 70s and 80s, she made albums in her old style for Rounder Records and in a bluegrass idiom for Rebel, recruiting young musicians to give new life to old standbys such as Come Walk With Me and You Tried to Ruin My Name. Like her contemporaries Rose Maddox and Kitty Wells, in both her professionalism and the integrity of her music she stoutly represented the role women had fought to achieve in country music during her lifetime.
She continued to appear on the Opry until 2001, when she had a stroke while on stage. She is survived by Carol Lee and two granddaughters.
• Wilma Lee Cooper, singer, born 7 February 1921; died 13 September 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/sep/27/wilma-lee-cooper-obituary

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Birth: 
Feb. 7, 1921
Valley Head
Randolph County
West Virginia, USA
Death: 
Sep. 13, 2011
Sweetwater
Monroe County
Tennessee, USA

Musician. Called the "First Lady of Bluegrass", she was a longtime star of Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. Raised in central West Virginia, she took to music early and was a part of her family's gospel group The Leary Family from her teens. Following her 1939 marriage to Dale "Stoney" Cooper she toured as 'Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper' performing both country and Christian songs while simultaneously earning a degree from Davis and Elkins College. In 1947 the pair began appearing on WWVA, Wheeling, West Virginia's answer to WSM, Nashville, and were regulars on the "WWVA Jamboree". Their period of greatest success dates from the 1956 hit "Cheated Too" on Hickory Records; in 1957 they joined the Grand Ole Opry and soon had a number of best sellers including "Come Walk With Me" (1958), "Big Midnight Special" and "There's a Big Wheel" (both 1959), and a 1960 cover of Stuart Hamblin's "This Ole House". Wilma Lee was designated "First Lady of Bluegrass" by the Smithsonian in 1974 and continued her career solo following Stoney's 1977 death. Forced to retire by a 2001 stroke, she remained in Tennessee and was to make a final Grand Ole Opry appearance in 2010 singing with a large group. A member of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame, at her death her recordings remained available, those cut with The Leary Family in 1938 from the Library of Congress and the later ones on the Smithsonian's releases and on various commercial labels. (bio by: Bob Hufford) 
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=76627182

Partial Bill History
Resolution Filed: S.J. 131
Committee Report Issued: S.J. 156
Complete Bill History

Bill Text
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. ____
BY McKEAN
A Senate Resolution honoring Grand Ole Opry singer Wilma Lee Cooper.
WHEREAS, Wilma Lee Cooper has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1957 and is widely acclaimed as the First Lady of Bluegrass; and
WHEREAS, Wilma Lee Cooper and her late husband, Stoney Cooper, spent part of their early career in Iowa and Nebraska, and have returned to perform in the upper Midwest on many occasions, and continue to have a wide following in the region; and
WHEREAS, Wilma Lee Cooper's career has spanned the decades from her childhood in West Virginia in the 1930s, when she sang with her parents and sisters as the Leary Family, through the next nearly 40 years of singing with her husband, Stoney Cooper, and the
1 18 Clinch Mountain Clan, until Stoney's death in 1977, and through more recent appearances on the Grand Ole Opry stage with the reorganized Clinch Mountain Clan; and
WHEREAS, the music of Wilma Lee Cooper has always been traditional country music, with some of her best-known songs being "Walking My Lord Up Calvary's Hill," "The Legend of the Dogwood Tree," "Come Walk With Me," "Big Midnight Special," "There's A Big Wheel," and "A Daisy A Day"; and
WHEREAS, Wilma Lee Cooper has been recognized as having made remarkable contributions to bluegrass music, and has received awards and honors from many sources, including the International Bluegrass Music Association, the Smithsonian Institution, the Country Music Foundation, Harvard University, and the Country Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and has been chosen to record for the Library of Congress; and
WHEREAS, Wilma Lee Cooper will be inducted into the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America's Preservation Hall of Greats on February 4, 2001, and will celebrate her 80th birthday on February 7, 2001;
NOW THEREFORE,
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE, That the Senate recognizes Wilma Lee Cooper for her achievements as a vocal artist, recognizing not only her talent and career accomplishments but also her contribution to the rich country music heritage celebrated by Iowans and music enthusiasts around the world.
LSB 1887XS 79
vl/cls/14.1

Bill History prepared on JUN 19, 2002 .
Introduced by
McKean.
A resolution honoring Grand Ole Opry singer Wilma Lee Cooper.

Action
Jan. 23 01
Resolution filed, referred to Rules & Administration. S.J. 131 .
Jan. 24 01
Committee report, recommending passage. S.J. 156 .
Jan. 31 01
Resolution adopted. S.J. 196 .

http://www.legis.state.ia.us/GA/79GA/Legislation/SR/00000/SR00002/Current.html