Kitty Wells and the Honky Tonk Angels

as many of you know,  i spent much of the early summer creating a text for my women in media course. the most challenging chapter for me was the one on pop  music-- my own tastes are pretty much stuck in the 1940s and '50s.  but i did learn a lot researching the women in various genres from the 1950s on, and one of my favorite things was coming across kitty wells {that's just 2 t's in kitty--i don't know why this picture added a 3rd].  so it made me a little sad to read last week that wells died on july 16, at the age of 92.  i'm glad she lived a long life, and i hope it was a happy one.

in 1952, wells was a fairly successful country western singer who, at 33, was planning to retire from singing to be a fulltime wife and mother.  but a friend, a man named j.d. miller, asked her to record a song he'd just written. she agreed, thinking the $125 fee for the recording would be useful. she  liked the song, but didn't think it was anything special.  

  it was.  miller had written the lyrics in direct response to a hit song called 'wild side of life,' in which a man laments his infidelity to his wife, blaming not himself but the woman he picked up at a bar. such women are dangerous to men, he sang, and he dubbed them 'honky tonk angels,' wondering why god had created them.  miller wrote that the deity had done no such thing, and his response was called 'it wasn't god who made honky tonk angels.'  the blame for men's infidelity is placed squarely on the men themselves.  far from being victims of these women, men who pretend they aren't married have caused 'many a good girl to go wrong.'  the lyrics are composed in the voice of a wronged and angry woman, and wells sang them with almost painful intensity and passion.

the response song became at least as popular as the misogynist work that inspired it; for six weeks it was at the top of the country music chart, and even got into the top-ten chart for pop music in general.   wells became the biggest female country star of the '50s.  the song's  fame went beyond kitty wells herself.  nashville recording companies had until then never offered recording contracts to women, but the blazing success of wells and her song caused them to change their policy. 

kitty wells postponed her retirement for 27 years.  she ended up with 84 singles on the country western charts.  in 1968 she had a syndicated tv show.  her song, too, lived on.  even the iconic patsy cline sang it.  it gained new life in the women's music movement of the 1970s.

wells herself seems to have led a fairly contented life, with her longtime husband and frequent singing partner johnnie wright, who died last year.  They lived long enough to meet their 5 great-great grandchildren.  Not bad, for a singer who captured angry heartache so well.