Kitty Wells married musician Johnny Wright. The two toured together.
Country Music has lost its Queen. Kitty Wells has died. The 92-year-old died at her home Monday morning after suffering a stroke.
Wells was born in Nashville in 1919, and grew up making music with her sisters and their father, a brakeman for the Tennessee Central Railroad. She married a musician, Johnny Wright, and in 1952, Wells became the first woman to top the country music charts with a controversial song about infidelity called “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honkey Tonk Angels.“
“Too many times married men think they’re still single. That has caused many a good girl to go wrong.”
Kitty Wells once told WPLN she wasn’t immediately received by the Grand Ole Opry because – in her words – she didn’t “jump around” like other artists of the day.
“Finally, Roy Acuff went to them, talked to them, says ‘that girl don’t have to do nothing but stand there and sing. She sings like I do, from the heart.’ So they finally put me on the Opry.”
Wells went on to make hit after hit. From 1953 until 1968 polls consistently named her the Number one female country singer and she kept performing on into her 80s. Wells was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, she received a GRAMMY for lifetime achievement and the Academy of Country Music named her a Pioneer.
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