Her husband of more than 70 years, country singer Johnnie Wright, died Sept. 27, 2011, at age 97.
Wright essentially managed his wife's famous career and made her the feature attraction as the Kitty Wells -Johnnie Wright Family Show. In many ways a reluctant star, Wells became the first female country artist to find consistent success, beginning with her huge 1952 Decca hit, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels." Hence her near-universal acclamation as the Queen of Country Music, a title bestowed on her years before the 1960s heyday of women singers in the field, including Patsy Cline , Loretta Lynn , , Dolly Parton and others.
One of the few early stars native to Nashville, she was born Aug. 30, 1919, as Muriel Deason. She dropped out of school during the Depression to take a factory job, but with two sisters and a cousin sang as the Deason Sisters on Nashville radio station WSIX. In 1937, the 18-year-old Deason married Wright, a fellow Nashville radio hopeful, who immediately put his new wife into his act (along with his sister Louise) as Johnnie Wright & the Harmony Girls.
Soon Wright added a brother-in-law, Louise's husband Jack Anglin, to the troupe, and in that era of duet acts, they became the featured tandem, Johnnie & Jack . Anglin's military service in World War II only interrupted their long march to stardom by way of such places as Charleston, W.Va., Knoxville, Tenn. and Shreveport, La. The duo finally got a second shot at Nashville's prestigious Grand Ole Opry in 1952 on the strength of their RCA Victor hits "Poison Love" and "Ashes of Love."
By this time, Muriel Deason Wright was the mother of three children Ruby, Carol Sue and Bobby but she remained in the touring act, even recording gospel and heart songs in 1949 and 1950 for RCA Victor under the name she'd been given in Knoxville Kitty Wells. (The name came from the title of an old Pickard Family recording.) Her RCA records didn't sell, and it was only with repeated pleadings that Johnnie Wright convinced Decca Records producer Paul Cohen in 1952 to give Wells a chance on that label. Wells agreed to try it mainly for the $125 session fee. (Johnnie & Jack and their Tennessee Mountain Boys also earned a few dollars as the session band.)
The featured song of that May 1952 session at Nashville's Tulane Hotel was J.D. Miller's answer to Hank Thompson 's red-hot "The Wild Side of Life." Expressing the age-old woman's point of view that cheating men are responsible for fallen women, the song was "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels." (Thompson's chorus said, "I didn't know God made honky-tonk angels.") Wells' record sold some 800,000 copies in spite of or perhaps because of being banned from play on the NBC Network and hence from live performance on the NBC-affiliated Grand Ole Opry.
No comments:
Post a Comment