Queen of country music Kitty Wells dies at 92

Veteran country singer Kitty Wells, who became famous as the first female country music star, died on Monday at her home in Madison, Tennessee. She was 92. The cause was complications of a stroke, her grandson John Sturdivant Jr said. The crooner, who rose to fame after the recording of "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels", was intending to retire from the business at the age of 33 to devote her full time to family, the New York Times reported. In 1999, she told the Nashville Scene, that the only reason to record the number was to collect the union-scale wage that the session would bring. "I wasn't expecting it to make a hit," she said. "I just thought it was another song." However, Wells's record proved to be a rejoinder to Hank Thompson's No. 1 hit "Wild Side of Life". "Honky Tonk Angels" resonated with women who had been outraged by 'Wild Side of Life', which questioned their morals and their increasing social and sexual freedom. Although, the NBC radio network banned Wells's record, deeming it "suggestive", her record spent six weeks at the top of the country charts and crossed over to the pop Top 40. The record's success not only made her the biggest female country music star of the post-war era, it also persuaded record executives in Nashville to offer recording contracts to other women. According to Mary A. Bufwack and Robert K. Oermann, authors of "Finding Her Voice: Women in Country Music, 1800-2000", "She was always proper, always dignified". "She dressed in prewar gingham instead of pantsuits, flamboyant Western garb or satin costumes," they wrote. Wells not only became a model for generations of female singers, from Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton to Iris DeMent, renowned song publisher Fred Rose also anointed her as the 'Queen of Country Music'. And even though, she placed 84 singles on the country charts, 38 of them in the Top 10, during her 27-year recording career, family was of most importance to the singer and her husband. The singer was also elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1976. Later in 1991 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences presented her with a lifetime achievement award. Only two other performers in country music, Hank Williams and Roy Acuff, had previously received that honour.