Bonnie Brown, the youngest member of the influential country vocal trio the Browns, is remembered on what the article describes as the anniversary of her birth in Sparkman, Arkansas. Alongside her siblings Maxine and Jim Ed Brown, she helped bring close-harmony country music to a broader pop audience during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably through the crossover success of “The Three Bells”.

Bonnie joined the group aged 18 in 1955, singing soprano, and the trio signed with RCA in 1956 after several country hits. Their 1959 single “The Three Bells” topped both country and pop charts, sold more than a million copies and received Grammy nominations; the Browns entered the Grand Ole Opry in 1963 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2015. She left the trio in 1967 to raise her family, occasionally reunited with her siblings later, and died of lung cancer in 2016 aged 77.