Appearances with Wright raised her profile, and she assumed the name Kitty
Wells from an old folk song, Sweet Kitty Wells, which was popular at the
time. Having three children in quick succession put her musical career on
hold, and it wasn’t until 1949 that she re-emerged to make her first
recordings, including the gospel standard Gathering Flowers For The Master’s
Bouquet, for the RCA Victor label. Disappointed by her lack of success, she
decided to stop singing altogether, only for her husband to persuade her to
go into the studio with the producer Owen Bradley to record a demo of Honky
Tonk Angels, a song written by a Louisiana Cajun musician and producer, Jay
Miller.
Kitty Wells then forgot about the session, and was unaware that the record had
been released until it was well on its way to becoming a million-seller. Its
six-week stay at No 1 in the country charts was not derailed even by the
publishers of The Wild Side Of Life attempting to sue on the grounds of
infringing copyright. The fact that The Wild Side Of Life had itself
borrowed the tune of an old country song scuppered their case.
The song’s ban by the Grand Ole Opry was lifted following the intervention of
one of the Opry’s leading figures, Roy Acuff, and Wells was launched on an
unprecedented run of success, registering 35 successive Top 20 country hits,
including Paying For That Back Street Affair; Hey Joe; and I’ll Always Be
Your Fraulein. There were also bestselling duets with Red Foley, Webb Pierce
and Roy Acuff.
Such was Kitty Wells’s commercial appeal that in 1959 Decca signed her to a
lifetime contract, and by 1980 she had notched up 81 hits. She toured
extensively all over the world, won numerous awards, and recorded and played
family shows with her husband and children, and hosted a long-running
television show. She also diversified from the country mainstream at one
point, recording Bob Dylan’s Forever Young with members of the Allman
Brothers.
Yet Kitty Wells remained modest and unassuming, relying solely on the homely
warmth of her singing to convey the emotion of her often sentimental music.
Devoutly religious, she loved cooking, preferring domesticity to the
limelight, and remained married to Johnnie Wright for 74 years until his
death in 2011. They had three children, Ruby (who died in 2009), Carol Sue
and Bobby.
She retired from public performance in 2000, still expressing amazement at her
extraordinary, trailblazing success.
Kitty Wells, born August 30 1919, died July 16 2012
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