3/12/2023 0 Comments Kitty wells![]() Oermann says, "Any Southern female country singer is going to be influenced - there's just no question about that. ![]() Oermann and Bufwack point to contemporary country stars like Emmylou Harris, Pam Tillis, Patty Loveless and Lee Ann Womack as examples of women who are carrying on the tradition set by Wells. In Thompson's song, he sings: "I didn't know God made honky tonk angels" - to which Wells responded, God didn't - you did: "Too many times, married men think they're still single / That has caused many a good girl to go wrong." She recorded "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" as a response to a "cheating song" from Hank Thompson. Based on Where She Was Born, She Was Destined for Country Stardom. After the war came drinking songs and what are called cheating songs, which are songs of adultery." In honor of Wells, here are five things you might not have known about the country music star. "Prior to the war, country was very much home and hearth and religion. "After World War II, country music topics broadened considerably," Oermann says. Maybe the most famous song Wells ever recorded, "Release Me," fell into the category of "cheating songs." "More evidence that there was no encouragement for women to step forward and really be the stars." "Kitty would also tell you that there weren't many songs being written for women at the time," adds Bufwack. "They had all these weird rules, like you couldn't play two female records back to back women couldn't headline concerts," he says. But Oermann explains that for Wells to come out of Nashville was extraordinary, because women were regularly pushed to the background in the South at the time. Wells was not the first female country singer - there had been others from Chicago, Atlanta and the West Coast. ![]() "At the same time, the contents - very updated to the current experience of people." They're nostalgic for some of the roots of home, so she carried the tradition of the South with her," she says. "This postwar era is when a lot of Southerners are moving around. Bufwack explains that the content of her songs was an equally important part of her appeal. This penetrating voice was only part of the reason that Wells was able to rise as a country star. "It's like she's very private and very intense, but at the same time very penetrating." ![]() "What I love about Kitty's voice is the sort of pent-up intensity in it," says Robert Oermann who, with Mary Bufwack, wrote Finding Her Voice: Women in Country Music. When she performed, Wells delivered the goods with a country twang and a supple, powerful voice that reached right to the back of the house. Starting in the 1950s, Kitty Wells, known as "The Queen of Country Music," recorded hit after hit at a time when women didn't have hits in country music. NPR Music remembers Wells with a story from the 50 Great Voices series. He performed with her throughout her career and their marriage.Kitty Wells, who paved the way for women in country music and was known as the "Queen of Country," died July 16, 2012. 27, 2011.īy the late '40s, they were appearing on the Grand Ole Opry. She took her stage name from an old folk song, "Sweet Kitty Wells." Wright died Sept. She married Johnny Wright, half of a duo called Johnny and Jack, in 1938 when she was not yet 20, and soon began touring with the duo. She began playing the guitar at 14 and soon was performing at dances in the Nashville area. "I loved doing what I was doing."Įllen Muriel Deason was born in Nashville, the daughter of a railroad brakeman. "I never really thought about being a pioneer," she said in an Associated Press interview in 2008. Wells collaborated with Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, and k.d. In 1991, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which presents the Grammy Awards. In 1976, she was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and 10 years later she received the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music. From 1953 to 1968, various polls listed Ms. She recorded about 50 albums, had 25 Top 10 country hits, and went around the world several times. 1 hit by a woman soloist on the country music charts and dashed the notion that women couldn't be headliners. "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" in 1952 was the first No. She made concert tours from the late 1930s until 2000. Her solo recording career lasted from 1952 to the late 1970s. Her family said she died peacefully at home after complications from a stroke. The singer Kitty Wells, 92, whose hits such as "Making Believe" and "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" made her the first female superstar of country music, died Monday.
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