Frances Mooney

Frances Mooney has been playing music for over 50 years. This Atlanta Country Music Hall of Famer was a high profile singer and bass player with The Bluegrass Generation in the Louisville, KY bluegrass scene in the mid-70s during the early days of Ricky Skaggs and Vince Gill. Both actually contributed to a few of the early Bluegrass Generation albums.

Born and raised in Georgia, she relocated to Kentucky in the 70s to become immersed in the rich bluegrass scene there. Frances said her grandparents on her mother’s side of the family were musicians and the catalyst for her musical interests. “My dad and my mother played but I wasn’t really into it until my late teens,” Frances recalled. “One day, all of the sudden, I wanted to learn how to play. It was inborn in me, it just took a while coming out. I haven’t stopped since.”

Initially, Frances started out playing music with her dad, and not long after landed in Kentucky playing bass in a band with her husband on the bluegrass circuit with Lonny Pierce and the Bluegrass Alliance.

She eventually found herself back in Georgia as a single mom working a full time job playing on the weekends with a few friends in an all female band called Cherokee Rose. “We were on the circuit doing really well, but it got too hard for me doing that, and raising two young boys. So I left on good terms and left it with them.”

“I was retired for two months and I couldn’t take it,” she said. And she’s been playing music ever since. Frances has been recording music all along. For her latest CD, she’s really excited about the song selections. For their new CD, Wild And Free, Frances uses quite a few songs written by David Stewart, who wrote like they were meant just for her. The CD released on January 18th, 2020.

To find out more, visit. www.fontannasunset.com