Kitty Wells

DESCRIPTION: "You ask what makes this darky weep." The singer weeps to remember Kitty Wells. The two were planning their wedding when she died
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1858
KEYWORDS: courting death nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,MW,Ro,SE,So)
REFERENCES (19 citations):
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 411, "Kitty Wells" (1 text plus mention of 12 more)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 411, "Kitty Wells" (2 tunes plus text excerpts)
Abrahams/Riddle-ASingerAndHerSongs, pp. 57-59, "Kitty Wells" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brewster-BalladsAndSongsOfIndiana 92, "Kitty Wells" (2 texts plus an excerpt)
Peters-FolkSongsOutOfWisconsin, pp. 125-126, "Kitty Wells" (1 text, 1 tune)
Stout-FolkloreFromIowa 60, pp. 80-83, "Kitty Wells" (4 texts)
Neely/Spargo-TalesAndSongsOfSouthernIllinois, pp. 223-225, "Kitty Wells" (2 texts)
McNeil-SouthernFolkBalladsVol2, pp. 166-168, "Kitty Wells" (1 text, 1 tune)
Henry-SongsSungInTheSouthernAppalachians, pp. 185-186, "Kittie Wells" (1 text)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #69, "Kitty Wells" (1 text plus a fragment)
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-1ed, pp. 145-148, "Kitty Wells" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #62, "Kitty Wells" (1 text, 1 tune)
Beck-SongsOfTheMichiganLumberjacks 78, "Kitty Wells" (1 text)
Pound-AmericanBalladsAndSongs, 94, p. 202, "Kitty Wells" (1 text)
Cox-FolkSongsSouth 127, "Kitty Wells" (1 text)
Shoemaker-MountainMinstrelsyOfPennsylvania, p. 141, "Kitty Wells" (1 text) (pp. 119-120 in the 1919 edition)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #1199, p. 83, "Kitty Wells" (3 references)
Dime-Song-Book #8, p. 9, "Kitty Wells" (1 text)
cf. Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan, p. 480, "Kitty Wells" (source notes only)
ST MN2166 (Full)
Roud #2748
RECORDINGS:
Vernon Dalhart, "Kitty Wells" (Victor 20058, 1926)
Sid Harkreader, "Kitty Wells" (Paramount 3043, 1927)
The Hillbillies, "Kitty Wells" (Vocalion 5018/Vocalion 5019, c. 1926)
Doc Hopkins, "Kitty Wells" (Decca 5983, 1941)
Bradley Kincaid, "Sweet Kitty Wells" (Champion 15502 [as Dan Hughey]/Gennett 6363/Silvertone 5187/Silvertone 8218/Supertone 9208, 1928; rec. 1927)
Pickard Family, "Kitty Wells" (Columbia 15141-D, 1927); (Conqueror 7517, 1930)
Ernest V. Stoneman, "Kitty Wells" (Okeh 45048, 1926) (Edison 51994, 1927) (CYL: Edison [BA] 5341, 1927)
Virginia Ramblers, "Kitty Wells" (OKeh, unissued, 1929)
BROADSIDES:
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(110b), "Kitty Wells," Poet's Box (Dundee), c. 1890
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Kate Wells
Katy Wells
NOTES [215 words]: This piece was repeatedly published in the mid-nineteenth century. The earliest copy (1858) credits it to Charles E. Atherton; the same publisher in 1861 issued an "authorized" edition as by T. Brigham Bishop. A third copy, from 1860, credits the piece to Thomas Sloan, Jr.
From the notes in Cox, it appears that this began life as a dialect song, but many of the texts (including Cox's own) are now in ordinary English.
The song became sufficiently well known that, according to Grant Uden and Richard Cooper, A Dictionary of British Ships and Seamen, 1980 (I use the 1981 St. Martin's Press edition), p. 250, any Royal Navy seaman named Wells was automatically given the nickname "Kitty."
Obviously it is not about the country singer "Kitty Wells," who wasn't born until 1919. But, according to W. K. McNeil, editor, Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music, Routledge, 2005, pp. 421-422, the singer was given her stage name as a result of this song. Born Muriel Ellen Deason in 1919, she married Jonnie Wright in 1937, and they performed together, later bringing Jack Anglin into the act. A few years later, Wright started calling his wife by the stage name "Kitty Wells." She didn't attract much attention -- until 1952, when she recorded "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: MN2166

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