Del Wood - Ragtime Goes South of the Border. Mercury MG-20678 monoraul 12" LP record album. Released 1962. Condition: Record and cover are close to NM. Comments: Polly Adelaide Hendricks Hazelwood (February 22, 1920 - October 3, 1989), known professionally as Del Wood, was an American pianist. Hendricks was born in Nashville, Tennessee. A lifetime resident of Nashville, she was surrounded by the influences of early country music and the remaining vestiges of ragtime, particularly through the guitar pickers. She took up piano at age five, and played ragtime, gospel, and country music. Despite her parents' best efforts to encourage a direction towards classical music, the environment in Nashville, plus the early local programming on radio, convinced her that she wanted to play piano in the honky-tonk style. Her dream goal was the Grand Ole Opry, something she would realize in her early 30s. She is probably the first female country solo instrumentalist to sell a million copies of a record, "Down Yonder." This success was turned into appearances on the Grand Ole Opry starting in 1952, which led to an eventual full-time gig there in 1953, fulfilling her long-time dream. Two years later her fame culminated with a contract from RCA Victor Records, where she would make some of the first country/honky-tonk stereo recordings in the late 1950s. While nothing else that she put out had the same success as "Down Yonder", her offerings over the next decade were frequent and consistent. Wood gained the title, Queen of the Ragtime Pianist, sometimes shared with junior fellow plunker Jo Ann Castle.