Jane Pickens Langley - Pickens Sisters

Pickens Sisters

The Pickens sisters were born in Macon, Georgia, and grew up there and in Atlanta. Their parents taught them to harmonize. Their father, a cotton broker, played the piano and their mother sang.

At first the sisters sang for friends, then at churches and schools. The family moved to Park Avenue in Manhattan in 1932, and a test recording for Victor made such an impression with radio executives that they hired the sisters unseen. Promoted as "Three Little Maids From Dixie", they appeared in Thumbs Up on Broadway and in a movie, Sitting Pretty.

Signed to Victor as Victor's answer to the popular Brunswick recording artists, Boswell Sisters, they recorded 25 sides for Victor from early 1932 until late 1934. Their records had a much more novel quality than the harder Jazz styled Boswell Sisters' records. Also, as 1932 Victor records had two and three part harmonizers, the Three X Sisters, with experimental sweet/swingy tunes. These three groups were the most noted harmonizers of their day.

The Pickens group earned $1 million in five years but dissolved when two sisters left to get married and a fourth, who was the group's manager, also departed.