Born Janet Lister in Inglewood, California, USA., she grew up in North Whitefield, Maine and developed a keen interest in country music and yodelling as a child. Janet and her siblings had been very popular as a quartet singing at churches in the area and appearing regularly on the network radio shows. The Lister Quartet sang harmony and found they were in big demand. Their ages ranged from 4 thru 10 years old at that time. While in Maine, the cowboy music they loved began to change to country music and that sound had invaded the home of the Lister's.
Janet was the one who was most obsessed with yodeling. She learned all of the songs that contained a yodel run and before long she had the quartet yodeling along in harmony with her. They were all pretty good too. Janet took her yodeling to a higher level than the rest but they all yodeled. In 1946, Janet and the family moved into an eighteen-foot trailer. From 1946 thru 1953 they lived under those conditions until in 1954 they were able to purchase a larger trailer. Janet caused many a neighbour to move from one trailer space to another just to get away from the noise she was continually making.
In 1954 a girlfriend introduced Janet to a young sailor from Lake Village Arkansas named Claude McBride. They married in 1955. Claude thought Janet was as good as 'Kitty Wells'. Janet performed with a group of friends known as the Harbor Playboys from 1954 through 1959 but after Claude was discharged from the Navy he started booking Janet at some of the local nightclubs. He had bigger plans for Janet Mcbride than just local stuff. After a few visits with popular recording artists Johnny and Joannie Mosby, Janet began singing on shows with them when possible.
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| Janet with Tex Williams |
From 1960 thru 1965 Janet McBride was a very popular recording artist. Records were also released on Galahad, Brookhurst, Sims and Longhorn Record Labels during those years and in 1961 another child was added to the family. In 1963 and 1964 she won 'Female Artist of the Year' in the Southern California Country Music Awards, which are now known as the Academy of Country Music. Janet cut the music soundtrack for the movie Hud, with along with Skeets McDonald in this time period also. Janet did all of this while holding down a regular job at Northrop Aircraft.
In 1965, she relocated to Dallas, where she became the featured vocalist at Dewey Groom’s Longhorn Ballroom, appeared on theBig “D” Jamboree and recorded songs and yodels for the Longhorn label. Accompanied by her husband Claude and songwriter Vern Stovall, she played Las Vegas venues and toured to Canada. In 1968, after further tours with Roy Clark and Tex Williams, she relocated to Nashville but returned to Dallas the following year and continued her appearances at the Longhorn Ballroom.
When Claude died, in 1973, she retired from singing until 1976, when she married B.J. Ingram, a Dallas County deputy sheriff. Together they started the Saturday night Mesquite Opry, a show which featured both local and touring country artists. In 1984, she achieved a lifelong ambition by singing on stage at the Grand Ole Opry with Patsy Montana, whose yodelling had always been her inspiration. (She had recorded Patsy’s ‘I Want To Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart’, as her tribute, years before).
Janet was contacted by Dagmar Binge from Germany and soon there was two albums of Janet's old recordings released on the Binge Label and finally her recordings were distributed worldwide. In 1985 and 1986 two Cattle Albums also from Germany were released featuring Janet McBride and Dexter Johnston and his band. Janet started writing songs again and from 1985 till the present Janet has released 11 cassettes and some CD's. During her career McBride, an excellent exponent of the art, has written several yodelling numbers including ‘Best Dern Yodeler’, ‘Yodelling Jan’ and her popular ‘Yodeling Tribute’, which mentions great yodellers including Jimmie Rodgers, Elton Britt and others.
She was awarded Western Music Association’s Female Yodeler Of The Year in 1991. Deciding to take things easier, she closed the Mesquite Opry 30 December 1995 but maintained some public concert appearances including touring to Austria in 1996, where she featured at the Vienna Country Music Festival gaining good reviews for her yodeling.
(Edited from AllMusic & Hillbilly Music. com)