Kitty Wells 1919-2012

The worst part of getting old is that all the folks I grew up listening to are passing.

LATimes

Kitty Wells was one of the first women to have a significant effect on country music. She had a No. 1 hit with 'It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels' in 1952.
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Mostly she was interested in the $125 union scale pay she'd get for the session, at which she recorded "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," a song that not only turned her career around but also helped upend stereotypical thinking about men who strayed and the women they strayed with.
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That recording was No. 1 for six weeks in 1952 and began a string of hits that extended to 1979.

The stern resolution in her voice would be echoed in subsequent recordings by Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris on through Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks and still ripples today in assertive songs by Taylor Swift, Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood.

"Kitty Wells was my hero," Lynn said Monday in a statement. "If I had never heard Kitty Wells sing, I don't think I would have been a singer myself."

Thanks to mrblindfreddy9999.

Godspeed, Mrs. Wright.