The late legend Kitty Wells recorded her first hit song, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," in 1952. When she discussed how the iconic song came to be, she was incredibly humble about it.
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The song has been streamed millions of times, but Kitty Wells, who passed in 2012 at 92, never let herself grow a big head about it. One year, when she sat down for an interview with the GRAMMYs, she explained how the song came to be. And she was super casual about it.
As it turns out, Kitty Wells wasn't actively seeking out music when this hit landed on her doorstep. When she moved back to Nashville, she had intended to become a housewife. Her husband, Johnnie Wright, and his other half in the Johnnie & Jack duo, Jack Anglin, played at the Ernst Record Shop program one Saturday night.
"Paul Coin happened to be in town, and he heard Johnny & Jack," she explained. Apparently, he went over to pitch a song he had come across. He didn't pitch it to the duo, however. He asked Johnnie to see if Kitty Wells herself would consider it.
"So he brought the song home and we listened to it," she said.
If you haven't guessed already, the song Paul Coin sent over was the iconic "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels."
Faced with the song that would become her first hit and her most popular track, she simply said to her husband, "Well, I'll record it if you want me to."
Kitty Wells Didn't Think Much Of The Song At The Time
It's weird to think that Kitty Wells really wasn't too phased with "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels."
"At least we'll make session pay out of it," she joked, setting her expectations real low. Before long, the song hit the charts and kept going till it reached number one.
"I never really thought about about what it meant to me," she said. She just knew she really liked the melody.
Well, whether she was ready or not, she had a hit on her hands.
