Left to right, Gene Gale, Wanda Cannon, Rose Richardson, Lon Gale. Two sets of singing siblings.
If anyone knows of recordings of this quartet, please contact me.
The Singing Christensens
My mom was Rose E. Christensen until she married my dad and became Rose Richardson. She graduated from Sacramento Junior College, majoring in choir. She and her sister Wanda sang together their whole lives, and their mother made them available for every occasion, mostly church meetings and funerals.
Two children who come from the same parents can learn to harmonize in ways that unrelated singers can't. A good example of this is the Everly Brothers. In the mid-1970s my mom and aunts Wanda and Lillian attended our LDS ward in Lark, Utah. After the meeting ended people from the ward came over to them to ask if they were visiting members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
In the early 1950s my dad bought my mom a very expensive record-making machine that was also a radio. It was about the size of a desk. Blank records were put on the spindle; there was an additional pin that went through an additional hole to keep the record from slipping. They'd sing into a tan colored microphone. I seem to remember that the recording started near the center and mechanically moved outward. Nobody in our home played the piano, but my mom bought one and had it in her living room so that they could invite someone over who could play and practice singing together, and they were good.
And so, with that brief introduction, here are the sisters Rose Richardson and Wanda Cannon singing two songs that were once quite popular, but unless you are really old, you've probably never heard them. Neither of these songs have anything to do with current TV shows. My sister Anne Richardson Daniel has the record from which these were made.
To listen to recordings of Rose and Wanda talking in 2003, click here.
To return to the Christensen Family index page, click here.
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