Country music legend Kitty Wells passed away July 16, 2012 at the age of 92. Among other accomplishments, she will be remembered because in 1952 her record of “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” became the first country music #1 song by a woman soloist.
Not only did the recording become an important first, it is a great country song too.
Although Wells may be best remembered for that groundbreaking hit, she had many other popular recordings, including a version of “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and she was known as the “Queen of Country.” She was generally listed as the top female country singer for more than a decade during 1952 through 1968 before being dethroned by Tammy Wynette, who was followed by other female country singers. Wells’s website notes a number of honors, including that she was inducted into the Country Music Association Hall of Fame in 1976.
Although it is hard to imagine now, but “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” was controversial when released. The song was an answer song to Hank Thompson’s “The Wild Side of Life,” where the singer said he didn’t know that God made honky tonk angels and bemoaned the lover that left him to go back to the wild side of life.
In Wells’s response with “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” written by J.D. “Jay” Miller, Wells put the blame back on the men. At the time, some of the male-dominated radio stations would not play the song and she was not allowed to perform it at the Grand Ole Opry. But the song struck a chord with enough people to become a bigger hit than Thompson’s song.
Both Thompson’s and Wells’s songs used the same tune, which appeared in the earlier songs of The Carter Family’s 1929 “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” and Roy Acuff’s 1936 classic record of Rev. Guy Smith’s “The Great Speckled Bird.” Kitty Wells herself later recorded “The Great Speckled Bird,” where you can hear the similarity to “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.”
Wells was born Ellen Muriel Deason in Nashville, Tennessee on August 30, 1919. She changed her name to Kitty Wells in 1943 based on a suggestion of her husband, Johnny Wright, who was also a country music performer. The name came from a folk ballad recorded by the Pickard Family, entitled “Sweet Kitty Wells.” Here is the song that provided her name, recorded by Billy Grammer.
Peace to Sweet Kitty Wells and honky tonk angels everywhere.
What is your favorite Kitty Wells song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
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