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.

Earl Scruggs, Bluegrass Legend, R. I. P.

Bluegrass legend and banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs, who helped profoundly change country and western music with fellow legend Bill Monroe and then later with guitarist Lester Flatt, passed away on Wednesday at a Nashville, Tennessee hospital at age 88 from natural causes.


An innovator who pioneered the modern banjo sound by using three fingers rather than the clawhammer style and thus turning the banjo from a  comedian's prop or part of the rhythm section into a lead instrument, Mr. Scruggs is remembered for his string-bending and lead runs that became known throughout the world as the "Scruggs-picking" style.


Earl was with Bill Monroe and The Blue Grass Boys, whose debut during a post-World War II appearance on the Grand Ole Opry was considered a "big-bang" moment for the modern development of bluegrass and country music.  After leaving Mr. Monroe in the late 1940s, Earl then teamed up with Mr. Flatt in a bluegrass act that lasted until they broke up in 1969 over which direction to go musically.


The team of Flatt and Scruggs was best known for their 1949 recording of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown, " as well their 1962 recording of "The Ballad of Jed Clampett."


After breaking up with Lester (who passed away in 1979), Earl used three of his sons in the Earl Scruggs Revue.


Lester (posthumously) and Earl were inducted together into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985.


Here are Lester and Earl from a 1965 telecast performing "Foggy Mountain Breakdown.:




Rest in peace, Earl.

Gone: Ferlin Husky, R. I. P.

Country Music Hall-of-Famer Ferlin Husky, who helped opened the door for a California strain of country and western music, and who had more than 50 charted hits from the 1950s to the 1970s, passed away on Thursday at a Nashville-area hospital at age 85.  He had a history of heart trouble.


Among the big hits during Ferlin's career, "Dear John" ( a duet with Jean Shepard, 1953), "Gone" (1957), and "Wings of a Dove' (1960).

Time For Pee Wee!

NOT Pee Wee Herman, of course!

From 1949, here's Country Music Hall of Famer Pee Wee King with "Bull Fiddle Boogie."