The Mom and Dads
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The Mom and Dads was a Western-styled folk music group from Spokane, Washington that specialized in waltzes, polkas, and general easy listening. The quartet, made up of one elderly woman and three middle-aged males, featured Doris Crow (b. 1905, d. 1998) on piano, Quentin Ratliff (b. 1934) on saxophone, Leslie Welch (b. 1912, d. 1983) on accordion, and Harold Hendren (b. circa 1919) on drums. Most of their fame was in Canada, (where they first gained fame when a Disc Jockey at a high powered radio station in Great Falls, Montana played their first recording, The Ranger's Waltz which was composed by Quentin Ratliff, the group's Saxophonist and this broadcast carried into the Canadian province of Alberta), and also in Australia. Their peak was in the early 1970s when they appeared on music charts. The Mom and Dads were seen in a string of late-night television commercials in the United States during the mid-1980s.
Band Biography
Their LP album entitled Presenting... The Mom and Dads had a mini biography printed on the back of the album sleeve. The section claimed that the Mom and Dads were able to play nearly any type of then existing dance music. From turn of the century dance music such as the Three Step, to more modern sounds, such as country and western. Their biography states that all the band members had individually begun to play dance music between the ages of 12 and 14. Doris Crow and Leslie Welch had been playing together for over 22 years when the youngest member of the band, Quentin Ratliff joined them. The group finally became a four piece 7 years later when Harold Hendren, who had gotten his musical start in New Mexico, joined the band on drums.
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