Kitty Wells & 50s Nashville

Having grown up in and around Nashville, I too find it a cultural signifier of a time that I didn't know. There are traces of the old raffish Nashville all around the town, but in general it's become such a homogenized place. Still, there's something very acerbic about Nashville when you get beyond the image it tries to project to the world. I find countrypolitan worrying for a lot of reasons, but I bask in the sound of the best of it.

When you say "Lynchian" I of course have a few reservations about all that, much as I admire the director and his vision. Roy Orbison I find overly melodramatic, mannered. Roy O. wasn't really very popular in his time, even given his handful of hits, and I guess Lynch is responsible for the revitalization of his career. Here in N-ville people are aware of the contradictions inherent in softening up the so-called Nashville sound, which was always about making money from a somewhat idealized past. A good case in point is Faron Young, whom I regard as the most underrated of all the classic '50s and '60s (and '70s) Nashville country artists. Most prefer his earlier honky-tonk and frankly Hank -Williams-derived recordings; but I dig to the max his more ornate, later recordings on Mercury. It was already a dream world as it was happening is my take on it, very alcohol- and lust-fueled, and so I think that music appealed to the dreamer, screwup and melancholic in all of us as it was being first offered to the public. Also, I think, just looking at what came out of Tennessee's two great musical centers Nashville and Memphis, in the '60s, that there was a relative lack of idealism present in Nashville, while the admittedly commercial offerings of the American studios in Memphis were so much more interesting, sparer, wryer, and more committed to the eternal god of rhythm, and to eccentricity, than nearly anything Nashville ever produced. One can only shudder to think what "Dusty in Nashville" might've sounded like...

he's who i thought of when i saw the thread title. "hello, walls" is a favorite of mine.

Billy Sherrill too

Most prefer his earlier honky-tonk and frankly Hank -Williams-derived recordings; but I dig to the max his more ornate, later recordings

sounds a lot like Ray Price's career trajectory. (At the risk of derailing the thread) I picked up Nightlife a few months back and have been pretty obsessed.

You can do worse on the Mercury stuff than picking up the Millenium Faron collection. It's good.

The LP I have that I really treasure is "Family Favorites," which is re-recorded but very good versions of many of his hits. Cover shot of FY and wife and kids...kind of like they're at Sears the way it's lit. And on the back, FY on his riding mower, in what looks like West Nashville to me. The version of "Congratulations" on this (Bill Anderson tune) is absolutely awesome! This really needs to come out on CD, I think FY put it out on his own label around '69/'70...

Yes, I like Kitty Wells too. 'It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels' was a great record, and probably quite an important one too.

I think you could do worse for countrypolitan imagery than the back cover of Faron Young's Mercury LP " Faron Young Sings Occasional Wife" & "If I Ever Fall in Love with a Honky-Tonk Girl" (that's the title). Faron in natty not-quite-electric-blue slacks and some kind of interesting vest, out in the yard of his ranch-style home on a winter day. The very image of the middle-class prosperity (exemplifed by a couple of beers taken on the riding mower) countrypolitan aspired to. A man with a few demons here and there, sure, but with eight and half acres to mow, wife Hilda, sons Damion, Robin, Kevin, and daughter Alana Denise, who really needs booze? I think this might be a definite key to the subculture we've been talking about in this thread.

RIP

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118056628

RIP.

However, Wells' fame quickly eclipsed that of her husband after she cut "Honky Tonk Angels," a song by Louisiana cleffer J.D. Miller that affixed modern lyrics parrying Thompson's song to a Carter Family melody. Reluctantly recorded at her first session for Decca for union scale of $125, the tune vaulted her to instant stardom.

Oh man, she was probably my favorite female country voice, at very least of that era. It's hard not to use cliches like "unaffected" and "pure" but there's something about the way she sang so pitch-perfect with just that slight, unforced vibrato at the end of every phrase. I'm actually not a huge fan of her biggest hit (Honky Tonk Angels) - I prefer Release Me, Amigo's Guitar, Making Believe. She also always had the best damned steel guitar on her records.

Had no idea she was still alive though.

Aw, damn... my band covers mostly deceased artists, and Kitty was one of the few we could proudly announce as still living. Love her so much. RIP.

Didn't know she was still around either. Doesn't Ed Harris say something when he meets Jessica Lange in Sweet Dreams to the effect that if she ever listened to a Kitty Wells record she would go home and cut her throat?

this song has always made me feel super sad -- something about the line "my plans for the future will never come true"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Wqb3-Tzx0

Spotify has a decent amount of material beyond greatest hits collections. There's a lot I've never heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKleTa94dC8

The radio station here had a "Queen of Country Music Dies" teaser before the commercial, and I assumed they meant Loretta Lynn. Anyway, I've had her MCA best-of for years, though I haven't played it for a while. The report said "Honky Tonk Angels" was the first solo-female country #1 ever.

Her music may have lacked range to an extent, which might explain why she wasn't an even bigger star -- you go to her for sad, slow, break-up type songs, just like you go to Peter Luger for steak. She also had kind of a conservative style that seems like it didn't change much as country music evolved.

RIP. <3 her -- so serious in those clips. lotta other country singers from that period would grin a little during the instrumental breaks or something, but not kitty!

She wasn't especially photogenic, but ordinary looks kind of suit her music.

Like it all has this resigned quality. Singers who look like Dolly Parton don't project the same kind of resignation.

I just learned that she had been married for 73 years when her husband died about a year ago.
Also she sang into her 80s!

Yeah and apparently they started as a singing duo. It's kind of impressive that a couple of their time kept their marriage together while her fame way outstripped his. It's also strange that a woman who was married that long sang about nothing but heartbreak.

agree on the first point, not sure the second is very strange, really
the heart will go on, etc

Pretty sure I heard Laura Cantrell interview her on WFMU around the time LC's tribute record came out, but I can't find the archive.

She made a record w/ the Allman Bros?

I believe Wells did make an Allmans record. I'll have to check. I interviewed Wells 4 years ago, when the Country Music Hall of Fame did an exhibit on her work. Wells was the first female country star--as with Hank Williams, her 1952 "It Wasn't God" says: Modern country music begins here. Her voice comes from way, way back. Takes some getting used to, in my book. I also interviewed Laura Cantrell a while back, and Laura told me that Wells' work isn't nearly as well documented as that of other, comparable stars. This will likely change after her death yesterday. Here's my article on Wells.

"Will Your Lawyer Talk to God" has got to be my favorite Wells track--sums up the heartbreak, the sense of doom, the moral fervor.

that was a nice article, thanks. here's a response to her death from the atlantic. based on a number of interviews i've read, the whole femenist interpretation of her career never really played into the her direct intent as an singer, but she sang what she sang and here we are. always loved her singing.

sometime in the early 1940s Muriel Deason became Kitty Wells, after a 19th century ballad that had made its way into the country repertoire.

i've heard a few versions of "sweet kitty wells". a very tender sounding tune if not for, ah, a certain racial slur bouncing about it.

(that quote was from Edd's piece, btw)

Really unpleasant stuff I didn't know about the guy who wrote "It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels." (Obviously this is not meant in any way to denigrate Kitty Wells.)

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-famous-door/105202/the-horrific-racism-kitty-wells-cryano

I have that "Allmans record" of Kitty Wells, called Forever Young, from 1974. It was one of the few releases out of Phil Walden's misguided attempt to start a country division for his Capricorn label. He had signed not only Kitty, but also her husband and son, Johnny and Bobby Wright, and songwriter Kenny O'Dell (Behind Closed Doors). The backing band contains Allman Bros members Chuck Leavell and Dickie Betts, alongside Toy Caldwell from the Marshall Tucker Band, Tommy Talton from Cowboy, The Willettes, and John Hughey on steel. They play it loose and jammy, taking Kitty way out of her comfort zone. The title track (the Dylan song) is probably twice as long as anything she recorded in the fifties. She also tackles "I've Been Loving You Too Long (to Stop Now)' and "Do Right Woman (Do Right Man)" alongside more standard honky tonk fare. Kitty's game, and "Do Right" is surprisingly poignant, but the band's inability to play concisely lets her down. Music Row would have never let something this sloppy hit the streets.