Album Review: Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs of the Queen of Country Music by Laura Cantrell

Kitty Wells was best known for her megahit from the ‘50s, “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”. That song made her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts. She became the first contemporary female country star and set the template for the plainspoken, tough talking country female vocalists that followed in her wake.

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Laura Cantrell's fourth full-length, Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs of the Queen of Country Music, reflects exactly what it is, a collection of covers associated with Wells. It may seem unusual that, given the six years that have lapsed between brilliant Humming by the Flowered Vine, that a canny songwriter like Cantrell would issue an album (almost) exclusively of covers, until you hear it. Produced by Mark Nevers, Cantrell's top-flight cast of players includes Chris Scruggs (BR5-49, M.

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Acharmingly cool, respectful tribute to the country superstar of the 1950s and 60s from the singer who became a heroine of the alt.country scene 40 years later. Now 91, Kitty Wells is the oldest living member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, revered in Nashville as the first artist to prove that a female country singer could become a best-seller, leading the way for the later success of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. Her songs were mostly sing-along weepies, and are revived here by Laura Cantrell, whose work was adored by the late John Peel.

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New Yorker returns to Nashville for joyous tribute to a country pioneer. Ninian Dunnett 2011 Laura Cantrell is no purist. The sweet-voiced singer has covered New Order and even dabbled in electronica. But the history that underlies this wonderful collection is the thing that draws her talents most keenly.

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