Kitty Wells
Ellen Muriel Deason (August 30, 1919 – July 16, 2012), known professionally as Kitty Wells, was an American pioneering female country music singer. She broke down a barrier for women in country music with her 1952 hit recording "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels", which also made her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts and turned her into the first female country superstar. “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” would also be her first of several pop crossover hits. Wells is the only artist to be awarded top female vocalist awards for 14 consecutive years. Her chart-topping hits continued until the mid-1960s, paving the way for and inspiring a long list of female country singers who came to prominence in the 1960s.
Kitty Wells
July 16, 2012 (aged 92)
Singer-songwriter
- Vocals
- guitar
1936–2000
- RCA Victor
- Decca
- MCA
- Capricorn
- Rubocca
- Southern Tracks
Wells ranks as the sixth most successful female vocalist in the history of the Billboard country charts, according to historian Joel Whitburn's book The Top 40 Country Hits. In 1976, she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1991, Wells became the third country music artist, after Roy Acuff and Hank Williams, and the eighth woman to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Wells' success and influence on country music garnered her the title "Queen of Country Music".
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Wells was born Ellen Muriel Deason on August 30, 1919 as one of six children of Charles Cary Deason and his wife, Myrtle, in Nashville, Tennessee.[1] (She is one of the few well known country performers to have been born in Nashville.) Wells began singing as a child, learning guitar from her father, who was a brakeman on the Tennessee Central Railroad.[2] Her father and his brother were musicians, and her mother, Myrtle, was a gospel singer.[1] As a teenager, Wells sang with her sisters, who performed under the name the Deason Sisters, on a local radio station beginning in 1936.[3]
At the age of 18 Wells married Johnnie Wright, a cabinetmaker who aspired to country music stardom (which he would eventually achieve as half of the duo Johnnie & Jack).[4]
Music career[edit]
Wells sang with Wright and his sister Louise Wright; the three toured as Johnnie Right and the Harmony Girls. Soon, Wright met Jack Anglin (who married Johnnie's sister Louise), and they became the duo Johnnie & Jack. Their band became known first as the Tennessee Hillbillies and then the Tennessee Mountain Boys.[1] At this time, Wells adopted "Kitty Wells" as her stage name. Johnnie Wright chose the name from the folk ballad "Sweet Kitty Wells" by The Pickard Family.[5] Wells toured with the pair, occasionally performing backup vocals.[3] Before Wells' rise to stardom with "Honky Tonk Angels", Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys toured with Wright and Wells for a time. Acuff advised Wright not to make his wife his show's headliner because he thought women could not sell country music records.[6]
On Louisiana Hayride, Wells performed with her husband's duo. Wells, however, did not sing on their records until signing with RCA Victor in 1949, releasing some of her first singles, including "Death At The Bar" and "Don't Wait For The Last Minute To Pray", neither of which charted. While these early records gained some notice, promoters still were not keen on promoting female singers, so Wells was dropped from the label in 1950.