Nashville, Tenn. — The Country Music Hall of Fame^® and Museum will honor country music’s first female superstar, Kitty Wells, in Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music, Presented by Great American Country Television Network, a biographical exhibit opening Friday, August 15, 2008, for a 10-month run in the Museum’s East Gallery. The exhibit will run through June 14, 2009.

Opening weekend festivities will include a 45-minute exhibit tour, guided by a Museum curator; an interview with Wells, hosted by 650 WSM announcer Eddie Stubbs and illustrated with photos, film footage and recordings from the Museum’s Frist Library and Archive; an autograph signing by Wells in the Museum Store; and a screening of the 1982 Showtime special A Tribute to Kitty Wells, hosted by Tammy Wynette. (A detailed schedule of grand opening activities is below.)

“Kitty Wells is, quite simply, a trailblazer,” said Museum Director Kyle Young. “Her many hits—including her signature song ‘It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels’—were sung from a woman’s point of view, something that was new to country music at that time. She was marketed as a solo performer in an industry where women previously had performed only as members of family groups. Her success in selling records and concert tickets led record companies to open their doors to women artists. Many of contemporary country music’s biggest stars are women,” he said, “but Kitty Wells is the prototype.

“We are grateful to both Kitty and her husband, country star Johnnie Wright, for opening up their lives and home to us and allowing us to tell their extraordinary story.”

Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music,
Presented by Great American Country Television Network

Born Muriel Deason in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 30, 1919, Wells forged a groundbreaking career that spanned more than a half century. Her indelible contributions to American music were acknowledged formally in 1976 when she was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Employing a wealth of splendid stage costumes, vintage photos, awards, instruments, posters and advertisements, personal correspondence and career-spanning audio and video of both Wells and Wright, Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music will explore how Wells, a soft-spoken, dignified mother of three, succeeded in tearing down country music’s gender barrier and became a role model for generations of female artists. The exhibit will also chronicle Johnnie Wright’s successful recording career—both with the duo Johnnie & Jack and as a solo artist—and his role in managing Wells’ career.

Among the notable artifacts included in the exhibit are:

• sheet music of the ballad “Kitty Wells,” from which Johnnie Wright chose his wife’s stage name
• songwriter J. D. Miller’s original manuscript of “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”
• Wright’s 1947 Martin D-28 guitar with custom pick guard designed by Shot Jackson;
• Wells’ 1954 Gibson L-5 guitar
• a blue gingham stage costume worn by Wells in the 1950s;
• a gown worn by Wells to the 1976 CMA Awards, during which she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame
• Wells’ 1991 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award

Selected audio and video clips will further expand the exhibition story.

Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music, Presented by Great American Country Television Network Grand Opening Weekend Program Schedule

All programs August 15-17 are included with Museum admission and free to members.

Friday, August 15 — 11:00 a.m.
Curator’s Exhibit Talk
A Museum curator offers an introduction to Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music.

Saturday, August 16 — 1:30 p.m.
Interview with Kitty Wells
650 WSM personality Eddie Stubbs will interview Wells in the Museum’s Ford Theater. The program will be illustrated with vintage photos, film footage and recordings culled from the Museum’s collection.

Saturday, August 16 — 3:00 p.m.
Autograph Signing
Wells will sign autographs in the Museum Store.

Sunday, August 17 — All Day
Film Loop: A Tribute to Kitty Wells
Hosted by Tammy Wynette, this 1982 Showtime special features performances by Wells and her family, as well as Roy Acuff, Tom T. Hall, Hank Williams Jr., Wynette and many others. It will air continuously throughout the day.

Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music will be accompanied by an ongoing series of programs throughout the exhibit’s run.

These programs are made possible, in part, by grants from the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission and by an agreement between the Tennessee Arts Commission and National Endowment for the Arts.

Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is operated by the Country Music Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964. The Museum’s mission is the preservation of the history of country and related vernacular music rooted in southern culture. With the same educational mission, the Foundation also operates CMF Records, the Museum’s Frist Library and Archive, CMF Press, Historic RCA Studio B, and Hatch Show Print.

More information about the Country Music Hall of Fame^® and Museum is available at www.countrymusichalloffame.com or by calling (615) 416-2001.

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Nashville, Tenn. — The Country Music Hall of Fame^® and Museum will pay tribute to the genre’s first female superstar, Kitty Wells, with the cameo exhibition Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music. The exhibit will open in the Museum’s East Gallery on August 15, 2008, and will run through June 2009.

“Kitty Wells is, quite simply, a trailblazer,” said Museum Director Kyle Young. “Her many hits were sung from a woman’s point of view, something that was new to country music at that time. She was marketed as a solo performer in an industry where women previously had performed as members of family groups. And her success in selling records and concert tickets led record companies to open their doors to women artists. Many of contemporary country music’s biggest stars are women, but Kitty Wells is the prototype.”

Born Muriel Deason, the Nashville native grew up surrounded by music: Her father and uncle were country musicians, her mother a gospel singer. In 1934, during the height of the Great Depression, 15-year-old Wells dropped out of school to take a job ironing shirts at the Washington Manufacturing Company. She also formed a group – the Deason Sisters – with her cousin Bessie Choate, and they began performing regularly on the radio.

Three years later, Wells married singer Johnnie Wright, and the two of them, along with Wright’s sister Louise, performed as Johnnie Wright and the Harmony Girls. In 1939, Wright and Jack Anglin formed the duo Johnnie & Jack, and Wells performed with them as the “girl singer” on radio shows throughout the South. It was during this time that Wright began to refer to his wife as “Kitty Wells,” a name taken from a popular old-time country song.

Johnnie & Jack took a hiatus during World War II, but reunited postwar and, accompanied by Wells, moved to Shreveport to join influential country radio show the Louisiana Hayride. During this time, RCA Records signed both Johnnie & Jack and Wells to the label, but the eight sides cut by Wells were poorly promoted and distributed, and no hits materialized. Johnnie & Jack, however, scored a breakthrough in 1951 with their Latin-flavored tune “Poison Love,” and the Grand Ole Opry lured them back to Nashville.

By this time, Wells had three children and was ready to halt her career. Instead, a chance meeting between Wright and Decca Records executive Paul Cohen in 1952 jumpstarted it. Wells had previously sent a demo to Cohen, but had not received a reply. When Cohen attended a Johnnie & Jack performance on Ernest Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree, Wright asked Cohen if he would be interested in signing Kitty. Cohen said yes, and mentioned that he had a song in mind for her: “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.”

Wells wasn’t enamored of the tune, an answer song to Hank Thompson’s hit “The Wild Side of Life,” but decided to take a chance on it. The epochal single, with its premise that deceitful men are responsible for fallen women, gave voice to the feelings of countless women in postwar America and soared to the top of the country charts, where it remained for six weeks. The record sold more than 800,000 copies.

The song’s runaway success earned Wells an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry cast, and during the 1950s she became the Opry’s first female singing star. More importantly, her unbridled success opened the doors of Nashville’s recording studios to dozens of female artists. Wells’ sales triumph decimated the heretofore prevailing notion that women could not sell records, and she paved the way for subsequent superstars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and many others.

Wells’ follow-up hits, all produced by Owen Bradley and featuring her trademark gospel-touched vocals and tearful restraint, included “Release Me,” “Makin’ Believe,” “A Woman Half My Age” and dozens more. She garnered top female vocalist honors in country trade magazines from 1952-1965, and starred with Wright in their own syndicated television show in 1968. Wells was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1976; in 1991, she was presented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the first female country artist to be thus honored. Wells and Wright continued to perform throughout the 1990s.

More information about the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is available at www.countrymusichalloffame.com.

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