Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music

July 19, 2012 at 5:21 am (Jackie Mcdonough, music, song, United States, women)

Aug 30th 1919 – July 16 2012; RIP

“Kitty Wells, who has died aged 92, made a place for the female country singer in the postwar era, opening doors through which would follow Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton and many other women determined to match their male counterparts all the way. Piercing and penetrating, Wells’s was the quintessential country voice of desolation and atonement ” – from the Guardian obituary by Tony Russell.

‘It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels’:

A big hit despite being banned at the time (1952): “From the start most every heart that’s ever broken/ Was because there always was a man to blame.”