Kitty Wells woman country singer

Kitty Wells was born in 1919, as Ellen Muriel Deason.  Most of the earlier country singers were born in the Southern states, but Kitty was unusual in that she was actually born in Nashville Tennessee…  Her father was a brakeman on the Tennessee railroad who also sang and played Guitar. And her mother sang Gospel.  Other members of her family were singers.

At the age of 18, she married Johnny Wright, who was a country singer.  He was part of a duo, Johnny and Jack.   Women were thought of then as “girl singers”, and not as serious performers or song writers.  Ellen adopted the stage name “Kitty Wells” and performed with her husband but was not taken very seriously.  She worked for several years until the early 50s and became depressed at the lack of attention and success.  She was considering retirement.   

However a music executive suggested that she record a song “It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” which she said she thought of as “just another song”... She was depressed and disenchanted but agreed to do the recording.   It was an “answer song” to Hank Thompson’s cynical song “The Wild Side of Life” which blamed women for leading men astray and being unfaithful.  Thompson’s song was popular but it was highly critical of women. And it was probably inevitable that there would be some kind of response to it.

Kitty’s song was considered rather shocking - It  attacked men for leading women astray and said that for every “honky tonk angel” there was some man who had drawn her into that lifestyle...and one of the lines was “It’s a shame that the blame is on us women”.. It was an early feminist statement, in the conservative country genre.  Yet the song took off and was immensely successful. Audiences loved it.   Kitty proved that women singers could sell well and make a lot of money... and she was now a success.   Now she became the first female country singer to issue an LP, starting with 1956's Kitty Wells' Country Hit Parade.  She also wrote songs and showed that women could be taken seriously as country artistes.   She led the way for newer women singers, like Loretta Lynn who came along in the early 60s and who wrote songs based on her own life as a woman... mother and housewife.  Loretta’s songs were feminist, in that they were written from a woman’s point of view and showed that an ordinary woman at the time had a hard life but was often still feisty and tough... Loretta sang for the woman fighting to keep her marriage together, telling off her husband for drinking and fooling around but not having unrealistic ambitions that men would become angels or that she as a woman would have a career.....

In the 60s and 70s’s Kitty Wells continued to have a steady career and even had her own TV show... though it did not last long, compared with the shows by male stars like Porter Wagoner.  She and her husband had 3 children, who all worked in the music and acting business, and was happily married for over 70 years.  Bobby her only son was an actor and singer.  Kitty and Johnny went on touring until 2007, and then retired and she died a few months after him, at the age of 92.