Frances Mundy-Mooney
Frances Mundy-Mooney is a bluegrass bassist, singer, and bandleader from Cumming, Georgia. She began singing and playing guitar at 17 and took up the bass around 21. She and Jim Mundy formed the Bluegrass Generation in the early 1970s and moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to perform full time. They worked at Ghost Town on the River and played festivals and clubs across the northern states. The band recorded four LPs between 1972 and 1978 with Ricky Skaggs producing the last two, and he and Vince Gill appeared as guests. Kentucky Governor Julian Carroll named her a Kentucky Colonel in 1975. She returned to Georgia around 1978 and in 1979 formed the all-woman band Cherokee Rose with Connie Morris, Mindy Johnson and Tyra D. Sommers. Louisa Branscomb soon replaced Morris. Mundy-Mooney led Indian Summer from 1980 to 1995 and has led Fontanna Sunset since 1998. Fontanna Sunset has received IBMA nominations for Vocal Group of the Year, and she has been nominated for Bass Player of the Year by both the IBMA and SPBGMA. She performed in Shanghai in December 2006 at the invitation of the Chinese government. She was a founding member, with Lorraine Jordan, of the Daughters of Bluegrass, a recording project by women bandleaders that won IBMA Recorded Event of the Year in 2006 and 2009.
In the newsletter
- No. 25 Winter 2001