Biography
Daughters of the celebrated early old-time fiddler Charlie Bowman, Jennie and Pauline Bowman already counted as show-business veterans by the moment they launched their sister-duo recording career, having first stepped onstage just beyond the toddler years. Jennie Bowman developed strong command of both accordion and fiddle, while Pauline Bowman proved an accomplished guitarist and displayed equal mastery of the ukulele. The sisters enjoyed wide local renown throughout Tennessee, their father declaring them “the best-known kids in East Tennessee.” In the formative years of country music, the spectacle of two sisters each handling multiple instruments struck audiences as genuinely novel; the Bowman Sisters themselves could recall no outside musical influences of any kind, making their style a wholly original creation rather than an echo of earlier models, in contrast to the Dixie Chicks. They managed only two recording sessions, a total their admirers have long considered far too modest. The first took place in Johnson City, TN, with Jennie Bowman just 15, establishing the initial documented instance of sisters recording in country-music history. For the second they traveled to New York City, a comparatively safer environment than the gun-blazing moonshine conflicts that gripped Johnson City in the late 1920s. Those New York dates formed part of a package tour that also featured the Blue Ridge Ramblers and roughly a dozen other Appalachian performers. Among the sides cut was the plaintive “Old Lonesome Blues,” later reissued by the Rounder label on the anthology Banjo Pickin’ Girls devoted to female country artists. The track spotlights the accordion work of Fran Trappe, the German musician who belonged to their father’s band, the Hill Billies. After her marriage Pauline Bowman withdrew from professional music. Jennie Bowman continued alone, adopting a cowgirl costume as standard stage attire, and died in Baltimore in 1976; she was survived by her sister, who remained in Johnson City.