Kitty Wells, country music star, dies at 92
FILE - This 1976 file photo shows Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Kitty Wells during the Country Music Association (CMA) awards in Nashville, Tenn. Wells, the first female superstar of country music, has died at the age of 92. The singers family says Wells died at her home Monday after complications from a stroke. Her recording of "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" in 1952 was the first No. 1 hit by a woman soloist on the country music charts. Other hits included "Making Believe" and a version of "I Can't Stop Loving You." (AP Photo, file)
(Washington Post) — Kitty Wells, a country singer with a piercing nasal twang who became one of the first female headliners in her profession and whose repertoire of tear-jerking songs about adultery and broken homes brought a woman’s perspective to a male-dominated genre, died July 16 at her home in Madison, Tenn., after a stroke. She was 92.
The death was confirmed by her son-in-law Tom Sturdivant.
Starting with “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” Ms. Wells achieved 51 hits in the Billboard country Top 20 from 1952 to 1966. Her relentless touring on a circuit of county fairs, fire department carnivals and small-town auditoriums paved the way for later female entertainers in country music.