Country Music Museum to Honor Kitty Wells

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville will honor country music’s first female superstar, Kitty Wells, in Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music, a biographical exhibit opening Aug. 15. The exhibit will run through June 14, 2009.

“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.”

Born Muriel Deason in Nashville on Aug. 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, Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music will explore how the 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 the successful recording career of Johnnie Wright, her husband, and his role in managing Wells’ career.

Courtesy of leisuregrouptravel.com