Kitty Wells

Ellen Muriel Deason (30 August 1919 – 16 July 2012), known professionally as Kitty Wells, was a pioneering American female country music singer.

She was a guest performer in Hee Haw.

Career Highlights
She broke down a female barrier in country music with her 1952 hit recording, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" which also made her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts, and turned her into the first female country superstar. It would also be her first of several pop crossover hits. Wells is the only female artist to be awarded top female vocalist awards for fourteen consecutive years. Her chart topping hits continued until the mid-1960s, paving the way for and inspiring a long list of female country singers who came to prominence in the 1960s.

Wells ranks as the sixth-most successful female vocalist in the history of the Billboard country charts, according to historian Joel Whitburn's book The Top 40 Country Hits. In 1976, she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1991, she became the third country music artist, after Roy Acuff and Hank Williams, and the eighth woman, to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Wells' success and influence on country music garnered her a title "Queen of Country Music'.