b. 18 March 1941, Roxboro, North Carolina, USA. Bowes learned guitar and was singing on theVirginia Barn Dance on WDVA, Danville and on television in Roanoke, Virginia, in her early teens. In 1958, she won a talent competition organized by the Pet Milk Company, which led to her recording for Hickory and soon afterwards appearing on the Grand Ole Opry. In 1959, ‘Poor Old Heartsick Me’ became her first country chart hit, peaking at number 10 and charting for 16 weeks. She followed it with a number 15 with her version of Phil Everly’s ‘My Love And Little Me’. She moved to Mercury Records in 1961 but only managed a single hit with the strangely titled ‘Little Miss Belong To No One’ and by 1964, she had joined Decca Records. Two more chart entries followed with ‘Our Things’ (number 33) and ‘Understand Your Gal’ (number 26), the ‘answer’ song to Johnny Cash’s ‘Understand Your Man’. She achieved no further chart entries and in 1969, her final Decca Records single, ‘Go Woman Go’, seemed prophetically correct, in spite of the b-side being ‘I Have What It Takes’. During her career, she appeared on ABC’s networkedJubilee, USA and in the filmGolden Guitar. She was for a time married to Doyle Wilburn of the Wilburn Brothers.