BACK STORY
By CHRISTINA HUGHES BABB
Carolyn Monté holds a photo of herself and sisters Judy and Mary Jo — the trio toured the country and shared a stage with Elvis Presley in the 1950s. Photography by Emil Lippe.
Sunshine sister
T h e C h e l e t te S i ste rs h a d h i ts i n t h e d ays of B i g D J a m b o re e
P
ort Arthur, Texas, radio station KPAC used to sponsor a talent competition early each Saturday morning. If the performances weren’t a draw, the southern made sugar donuts were, so there was quite a crowd that day in 1947 when three Chelette children — Mary Jo (8), Carolyn (5) and Judy (2) — lined up to sing. There were too many contestants, and if all three girls wanted in, they would have to take the stage together. They performed a winning rendition of “You Are My Sunshine,” and a musical trio was born. The Chelette Sisters began appearing on entertainment stages in every major city across the southern United States; became fixtures on radio shows includ-
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ing Big D Jamboree, Dallas Saturday Nite and Shindig Dallas; performed live alongside Grand Ole Opry stars including Hank Snow, Moon Mullican and Lefty Frizzell and toured with Minnie Pearl, Eddie Arnold and Dell Wood. In 1954, the whole family traveled to New York where the sisters performed on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour — an American Idol-style show — and landed a dozen subsequent TV appearances. In ’55, they sang at a Louisiana Hayride (radio show) benefit for the Port Acres fire department, where they were billed equal to a teen Elvis Presley. That’s just for starters. The middle sister, fearless redheaded Carolyn, eventually married a doctor who took a job at Stevens Park Hospital.
“She said, ‘You and your sisters are so lucky!’ You’ve gotten to do so many things — sing on Broadway, make a movie — she went on and on,” Carolyn says. “Well, that person was Janis Joplin.”
