The Petticoat Junction Girls:
On Record & On Tour
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In 1968, the Petticoat Junction Girls - Meredith MacRae,
Linda Kaye Henning & Lori Saunders - recorded two singles for
Imperial Records:
"I'm So Glad That You Found Me" b/w "If You Could Only Be
Me"
"Wheeling, West Virginia" b/w "Thirty Days Hath
September"
In an interview with Dave Stein, Linda recalls that time
period:
DS: In '68, on Imperial Records, you girls recorded two
singles. What happened there? Did somebody come over and say,
"Let's go into the studio and make a record"?
LH: I'm not sure exactly how it came about. I know that
Meredith did have a recording contract, so it may have come
about through her, but we also had this act we did... We
started doing the act around 1968, '67-'68. In fact, in '68, we
did quite a lot of stuff. We had a lot of special material. We
were on the Johnny Carson show and did a number. That's when he
was still in New York. I don't know who was the one who got the
contract going. It might have been Lori's husband, because he
was always involved in producing, and he had a lot of contacts.
But we made two singles, and we were going to make an album. We
just never did. I don't remember why.
DS: What was it like for you to be on "The Tonight Show"
with the other girls, singing? That's a really big
audience.
LH: That was very exciting. I mean, most of the talk shows
I didn't think too much one way or the other about. I was glad
to be able to do them, but Johnny Carson, because it was Johnny
Carson's show, that was really exciting. And, of course, you
don't lip-sync on that show. You do anything you do there live.
And we had arrangements, and I remember we rehearsed with the
orchestra, and it's a wonderful orchestra. And so that was very
exciting, to be able to do that. We were in Atlantic City
working at the Steel Pier just before that, and we worked there
for about a week, and then we went to New York to do "The
Tonight Show".
They also hit the road as a nightclub-style act to sing and
promote the show. Lori shares her memories with Dave:
"We would usually go out for the weekend. They would book
us in...fairs, circuses, openings, nightclub shows, like the
Steel Pier in Atlantic City. We would go out and we would talk
to the audience, in "Petticoat Junction"-kind of personalities.
We didn't wear "Petticoat" clothes, though. We wore flashier,
at the time, silver lame', boots, that kind of stuff. The music
was more sophisticated that "Petticoat", and we would have solo
singing, we would dance a little, and we would do a song called
'Sisters'. We would do some comedy in it, a little shtick, here
and there. We were traveling a lot, practically every weekend
almost. At the time, the show was hot. We would go into these
towns and people just couldn't get enough of us. We weren't
real popular in the bigger cities, but in the small cities,
people loved us."
Dave also asked Meredith her recollections about the
touring:
"In a way, that was probably the most fun that we had, was
when we traveled. We just...were devils. We had a wonderful
time. We would order room service with hot fudge sundaes and
things, and wine. We were all over 21 by then, and we just had
a ball. We just had fun, we stayed up late, we watched movies.
We had a great time. We threw our boots over the Steel Pier,
because we had to do five or six shows a day in Atlantic City,
and we were tired, and our boots were smelly. After the show,
we agreed that we were going to go out and throw our boots over
the pier. And it was fun. We were in these little mini-dresses
and big boots. We just had a great time.
Tour Dates 1968
April 19-27 Zembo Temple's Shrine Indoor
Circus in Harrisburg, PA
July 3-6 Steel Pier in Atlantic City
Aug. 13 Ozark Empire Fair
Aug. 25 Kings District Fair (The Star Show starring the PJ
Girls in the Outdoor Theater)
Sept. 30 - Oct. 1 Nashville Police Show
Please email
me know if you have any further information.
I'll be happy to post it!