During the Music Hall/Vaudville era, all-girl singing groups were mainly novelty acts singing nonsense songs in silly voices. One of the first major exceptions was the Boswell sisers, who became one of the most popular singing groups from 1930 to 1936, with over twenty hits. The Boswells were noted for their artistry, and often played their own instruments and performed their own arrangements. The Andrews sisters started (1937) as a Boswell tribute band, filling the vacuum left after that group's demise. The Andrews Sisters remained hugely popular through the 1940s and 1950s as recording and performing stars, until the rise of early rock and roll made their tight-harmony, big band-derived style obsolete.