Kitty Wells

Kitty Wells (born August 30, 1919, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.—died July 16, 2012, Madison, Tennessee) was an American country music singer and songwriter who was the first female star of the genre.

Deason sang gospel music in church as a child. In the 1930s she made her radio debut and took her stage name, Kitty Wells, from a Carter Family song. She married Johnny Wright in 1937, and they performed together off and on for a number of years. The couple’s three children eventually joined the act, which was billed as the Kitty Wells–Johnnie Wright Family Show; the family toured throughout the 1990s.

Wells scored her first major hit with the classic “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” (1952), a rejoinder to Hank Thompson’s “Wild Side of Life”, which blamed a woman met in a bar for the breakup of a marriage. Her plaintive vocals and emotion-packed delivery were also featured in such honky-tonk ballads as “Release Me” (1954), “Making Believe” (1955), and “I Can’t Stop Loving You” (1958). Her extensive repertory, which also embraced contemporary themes, included such hits as “Your Wild Life’s Gonna Get You Down” (1959), “I Heard the Jukebox Playing” (1959), and “A Woman Half My Age” (1966). She reigned as the top-ranking female country artist for some 15 years and was dubbed the “queen of country.”

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

The unpretentious Wells, who appeared in gingham dresses with puffed sleeves, defied the then widely held notion that women could not successfully headline the country stage. She paved the way for such later stars as Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Wells was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1976, and she was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards ceremony in 1991; she was only the third country performer (Roy Acuff and Hank Williams were the others) to have earned the honour.