Dale Troy “Stoney” Cooper and his wife Wilma Lee were one of the premier husband-and-wife duos in country music. They were on the Grand Ole Opry for twenty years, and performed together for close to four decades.

Wilma Lee was born and raised in Valley Head, West Virginia, on February 7, 1921.  Her family name was Leary and she sang with her father’s gospel band that recorded for the Library of Congress in 1938.  The band also performed on WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia.  When Wilma’s fiddle playing uncle left the band, Stoney Cooper was named to replace him.  Wilma Lee Leary and Stoney Cooper were married in 1939.

They carried their singing careers to various radio stations around the country, ending up on the Wheeling Jamboree in the mid ‘40s and staying there for the next 10 years as one of the show’s most enduringly popular acts.  I was with them on the Jamboree in the ‘50s.

Stoney had a great sense of humor and enjoyed playing pranks on his fellow-entertainers, but he was a good sport when the prank was on him.  He was just a lot of fun to be around.

Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper recorded for the Columbia Records people for five years, beginning in 1949.  Their band, The Clinch Mountain Clan, featured dobro, played by Josh Graves for years, and mandolin with Stoney playing fiddle and Wilma Lee playing the guitar.  Their most popular songs for Columbia were “Sunny Side of the Mountain” and “Walking My Lord Up Calvary Hill.”

They moved over to Hickory Records (Fred Rose’s label) in 1955.  Two years later, they joined the Grand Ole Opry.  In 1959, the Coopers scored with three Top Five hits, “Come Walk With Me,” “Big Midnight Special,” and “There’s a Big Wheel.”  They had two Top 20 hits in 1960 and one in 1961.

Wilma Lee is in a nursing home in Nashville; Stoney suffered a heart attack in 1963 and died in 1977.

Dusty Owens
TCM Radio News