Estha Mae Parker was practically born with a guitar in her hand. “I remember as soon as my hand would reach around that guitar neck my mother taught me the chords, and my brother Eldrege taught me to play with him on the fiddle,” Estha Mae said.
“We would sit facing each other, and when it was time to change chords, Eldrege would tap me on the foot. It didn’t take long to learn when I missed a chord because he’d get heavy on the toes.”
Estha Mae is a member of the Coleman family, viewed by most as “The Bluegrass Family” of North Mississippi.
She and her siblings were all born around Bruce to Joe Louie and Myrtice Landreth Coleman. Her father played the “guitar, fiddle, wash board, molasses bucket, blew the jug or anything else that was handy.”
“When we were kids we had an old fiddle that didn’t have any hair on the bow, so my brothers caught the horse and pulled hair out of his tail and strung it,” Estha Mae said. “It didn’t work too good, but we would play everything. We had so much fun growing up. There’s nothing like it.”
Their mother played guitar and the organ. Estha Mae’s sister Alma Marine ordered a $14.95 guitar from Sears in the 1940s that most of the other siblings learned to play on.
“The first song I ever learned to play had two chords – D and A,” Estha Mae said. “It was called Rattler.”
“Here rattler here, Here rattler here,
Called the rattler from the barn,
Here rattler here.”
“Rex Jarrett requests that every time we play. It’s an old, old song.”
Estha Mae sang in the glee club at school in Ellard and took piano lessons from Mrs. Cobb at Ellard where she learned to read music.
“I learned to read the notes, but my mother had an organ at home, and I learned to play on it by chord and ear,” Estha Mae said. “Reading the music was too slow for me, so I still just play by ear.”
Among the earliest Coleman Family bands, from left, front, Raymond Ferguson, Estha Mae Parker; back, John Wright, Wayne Coleman, Eldrege Coleman and Mack Burns.
Kitty Wells’ song “Making Believe” was the first song she ever sang on stage, during a school play. But it was playing with her family that she was most known for.
“I don’t guess there’s a benefit that’s ever been held that we haven’t played for,” she said. “We’ve played from Memphis, Tennessee to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.”
Her brother Eldrege plays fiddle, guitar, mandolin, upright bass and sings. Her brother Wayne plays upright bass and all the others as well. He is best known for his vocals with old tunes such as “Old Gray Mule” and “Slew Foot.”
Her brother Riley, who learned to play from Eldrege, played a variety of instruments as well. Estha Mae recalled him teaching Hoyt Wooten to play guitar when they were at Ellard High School. Hoyt is now a music teacher at a Virginia college.
Riley played for several years with the band on the Louisiana Hayride. Estha Mae made a few appearances on the show with him in the 1970s. Her brother Russell, an area preacher, also sang.
The first time she performed as an adult without her family was in West Point.
“Shortly after Porter and I married, in 1953, he was working at the West Point Manufacturing Company, and he volunteered me to entertain at their Christmas party. That was the first time I ever sung apart from my brothers. It took me all week to find a dress.”
She was also a regular with her sister-in-law Glenda Fay performing on WCPC radio in Houston.
“Bro. Gambles from Vardaman hosted a program on WCPC, and we played every Saturday morning for him,” Estha Mae said. “I recall one time the electricity went off in Vardaman and we overslept. Bro. Gambles called and said ‘are you girls not going to sing.’ We threw our clothes on, grabbed the guitar and jumped in a ‘55 Chevy with that preacher in the backseat.”
“I got on Hwy. 8 and opened that car up. I wouldn’t do that now,” Estha Mae said with a grin. “I could see him in the mirror, sliding from side to side and praying all the way.”
“We ran in the radio station and just as we came through the door Robin said ‘it’s 9:30 and it’s time for the Praise and Prayer program’ and we went straight to the microphone.”
Estha Mae had a few opportunities to pursue a recording career herself, but decided she had more important responsibilities.
“We were playing at the Sparta Opry near Houston one night and they had a larger gathering than usual. There were no empty seats anywhere. It turned out country star Gene Simmons (famous for his hit “Haunted House”) was there to perform.
Estha Mae Parker holds the guitar her sister Alma Marine ordered from Sears in the 1940s for $14.95. It’s the instrument Estha Mae and most of her siblings first learned to play.
“When I got off the stage he asked me if I would sing a couple of songs with him. We finished and he asked me who my manager was. I said Porter Parker.
“Gene told me I needed to be recording songs and invited me to his studio. He said he would love to be my manager. I told him I’m working at the hospital and I have a son in school. I can’t do that right now. I guess that’s a chance I missed.”
Estha Mae worked for more than 30 years as a nurse at the hospital in Oxford.
Despite long hours as a nurse, wife and mother, she still rarely missed an opportunity to play the music she loves.
In 1973, along with her family, they founded the Coleman-Parker Bluegrass Jamboree near their home west of Bruce.
“For that first one, I called Turkey Creek, Old Field, Ellard, Pleasant Grove and Rocky Branch (communities) and invited those people to come,” Estha Mae said. “That was around 300 people.”
“We played on the back of a truck in the front yard. The ladies all brought a dish to serve. I remember we had 21 freezers of ice cream.”
Over the years, the Jamboree turned into a huge attraction drawing people from all over. But when her mother turned ill in the late 1990s, Estha Mae shifted her focus to caring for her.
“She moved in with us and we took care of her full-time,” Estha Mae said. “We didn’t play at all during those years, and after she passed we started back.”
During those years of no playing, Porter cut a lot of timber, and the Parkers decided to build a place for Estha Mae and the rest of the Coleman family to play indoors.
“Bluegrass music sounds better inside than outside because it’s not electric,” she said.
Her only request was that it be made entirely of wood.
“When I was young, I would often sing in the church at Lloyd and it always sounded so good there,” Parker said. “I always said if I have an Opry House, I want it made of all wood to have that same sound.”
A number of friends volunteered, led by Benny Stewart, and helped build the Opry behind the Parkers’ house. It opened in April of 2001.
“We don’t advertise it anymore,” Estha Mae explained. “We got up to about 600 coming when we had it in the front yard. Porter would put square bales of hay out there for people to sit on and then they brought lawn chairs. This place won’t hold that many.”
“We play around once a month, but at no set time, just whenever everybody can get together. We played just a few weeks ago and we had 70-something people in here.”
Estha Mae has countless news clippings, pictures, and programs from events the Coleman Family performed at over the years.
Two of her personal favorites were in later years. She recalled an invite from the late Barbara Yancy of Bruce to perform at Ole Miss.
She had heard my parents play “Black Jack Davy” and “Maple on the Hill” many times and I guess they were favorites of her and her husband Jesse Jr.’s. Well she called me and asked if I would come bring my guitar and come play those two songs at an event at Ole Miss. I don’t remember exactly the occasion. I just recall I was very honored to be asked.”
Another of her favorite performances was a professional bluegrass festival in Columbia several years ago. She joined a bunch of other female musicians and they played an impromptu performance at the festival which received rave reviews. The group was dubbed “Chicks with Picks.”
“We just got on stage and had a whole bunch of fun,” Parker said.
She doesn’t tell her age, based on advice she received many years ago from Robin Mathis, but she still plays as often as she can and enjoys it as much as ever.
“If anybody is musically inclined, and they get with other people that are musically inclined, it’s the best time of their life,” Estha Mae said. “I love playing with my family more than anything. There’s just something about it you can’t describe. You can feel the love in the music.”
The current band features John Hyde, which Estha Mae describes as one of the best guitar pickers anywhere. Billy Rounsaville is another regular.
“Billy will play day and night,” Estha Mae said. “He’ll go to Mountain View, Arkansas, and pick with anybody he can.”
Her brothers Eldrege and Wayne still play along with cousins Jamie, Steven and Darrell Winters.
The family band has changed over the years, but not their passion for playing.
“We’ve played far and wide and never got anything out of it but just joy,” Estha Mae said. She’s not kidding. The Coleman Family never believed in accepting money to play for benefits, only professional festivals.
“It’s always been all about the music, family and just being together,” she said.