Monday, July 16, 2012

Kitty Wells, Pioneering Country-and-Western Music Legend, R. I. P.

Kitty Wells, who nearly quit the music business at the time she recorded the breakthrough hit "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," only to open many door for numerous women in country and western music, passed away on Monday of complications from a stroke at her Madison, Tennessee home at age 92.

Miss Wells' 1952 recording, an answer to Hank Thompson's "Wild Side of Life," proved to be a major country-and-western hit.  It resonated with women who didn't take too kindly to the late Mr. Thompson's recording.

Kitty, who was married for 74 years to fellow c&w artist Johnnie Wright (of the singing duo Johnnie and Jack) until he passed away last September, was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in her native Nashville in 1976.

During a recording career that lasted 27 years, Kitty placed 84 singles on the country charts, 38 of them in the top ten.

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