Plano, Texas – Donna King Conkling, one of the singing King Sisters who gained fame in the 1930s and 1940s in bands led by Horace Heidt and Alvino Rey, has died. She was 88.
The Colorado native, who also appeared on the weekly ABC-TV program “The King Family” in the 1960s, died Wednesday in Texas, where she had been living in recent years with her daughter, Candy Brand. She had asthma and cancer.
Donna Olivia Driggs was born Sept. 3, 1918, in Sanford, east of La Jara, where Donna’s father, William King Driggs, was a music teacher. The Driggs family was continually on the move, landing in Utah, Arizona, Idaho and California.
Three of Donna’s sisters – Maxine, Luise and Alyce – formed a vocal group and began performing while in junior high school.
According to the King Sisters’ official website, the girls made their radio debut on Oakland, Calif., station KLX in 1931.
With the Depression on, the girls’ radio income was supporting the family. They moved to Salt Lake City for a better-paying job. The station manager disliked their name, however, and demanded that they change it. They settled on the name King, which was part of their father’s name.
By 1934, the Los Angeles- based bandleader Heidt had heard the sisters on a KLX broadcast and decided to hire them as special guests for his band’s engagement in San Francisco. Heidt eventually added sisters Yvonne and Donna, along with a family friend, to create “The Six King Sisters.”
But when it was time to go out on the road, Heidt cut the group down to four for economic reasons. Working as a quartet, the King Sisters were made up of Yvonne, Donna, Alyce and Luise. The girls sang in tight, four-part harmony, with Yvonne or Alyce taking the occasional solo.
By 1938, the girls were working with Artie Shaw’s orchestra when Rey left Heidt to start his own band. Rey, who by that time had married Luise, relocated to Los Angeles, where he was offered a contract by radio station KHJ. The girls sang with his band until 1943, scoring several moderate hits, including a vocal version of the Glenn Miller favorite “In the Mood” that was recorded in 1939 for the RCA Records budget subsidiary called Bluebird. “Nighty Night,” recorded in 1941, also for Bluebird, with vocals by Yvonne King, became the band’s theme song.
Through the ’40s, the sisters also found work in films, mainly B pictures, including “Sing Your Worries Away,” starring Buddy Ebsen; “Meet the People,” starring Lucille Ball and Dick Powell; and “Cuban Pete,” starring Desi Arnaz.
Donna, who had married James Conkling in 1943, left the group by the end of the decade. Conkling, a recording-industry executive, played a key role in the formation of Warner Bros. Records and served as first chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
She is survived by five children, 23 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. Conkling died in 1998 at 83.
