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Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs Of The Queen Of Country Music [CD]

Laura Cantrell Audio CD
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
Price: £7.90 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs Of The Queen Of Country Music + Not The Tremblin' Kind + When The Roses Bloom Again
Price For All Three: £26.86

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Product details

  • Audio CD (25 April 2011)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Format: CD
  • Label: Spit & Polish
  • ASIN: B004QJL4EM
  • Other Editions: MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 7,827 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Samples
Song Title Time Price
Listen  1. Kitty Wells Dresses 3:26£0.69  Buy MP3 
Listen  2. I Don't Claim To Be An Angel 3:03£0.69  Buy MP3 
Listen  3. Poison In Your Heart 2:31£0.69  Buy MP3 
Listen  4. One By One 2:58£0.69  Buy MP3 
Listen  5. I Can't Tell My Heart 3:30£0.69  Buy MP3 
Listen  6. It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels 2:55£0.69  Buy MP3 
Listen  7. Making Believe 2:53£0.69  Buy MP3 
Listen  8. Amigo's Guitar 3:01£0.69  Buy MP3 
Listen  9. I Gave My Wedding Dress Away 2:33£0.69  Buy MP3 
Listen10. Searching For A Soldier's Grave 3:19£0.69  Buy MP3 


Product Description

Product Description

"Brand new album from Nashville-born, New York-based Laura Cantrell whose debut album was the late John Peel's ""favourite album of the last 10 years - and possibly my life"". Kitty Wells Dresses is Laura's 4th full-length studio album, following on from ""Not The Tremblin' Kind"" (Spit & Polish), ""When The Roses Bloom Again"" (Spit & Polish) and ""Humming By The Flowered Vine"" (Matador).

Recorded in Nashville and New York, it is a beautiful celebration of the music of The Queen Of Country Music and is Laura Cantrell's most overtly country album to date. Laura says ""I've been a Kitty Wells fan since childhood ... I always responded to the fundamental feeling in Wells' singing, her way of sounding both emotional and restrained at once, as if she were hanging on despite life's many hardships."""

Product Description

CD Songs Of The Queen Of Country Music

Customer Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A fitting tribute to a queen 30 April 2011
By Peter Durward Harris #1 HALL OF FAME TOP 10 REVIEWER
Format:Audio CD
Laura Cantrell, a magnificent singer in her own right but also a lifelong Kitty Wells fan, is the ideal woman to record a Kitty Wells tribute album. Upon hearing that Laura had recorded such an album, I checked to see if anybody else had paid such a tribute. I found one that Norma Jean recorded in 1966, but it has never (at least so far) been released on CD. So this tribute to the queen of country music, who is still with us but long since retired, is long overdue.

If you look closely at the cover picture, you'll see in the background a box of vinyl records, with two of them propped up at the front and side, one by Kitty Wells and one by Jean Shepard. In the foreground sits Laura, perhaps wondering if whoever is looking at the picture is a Kitty Wells fan. Inside the digipack, Laura provides some comments about the album explaining how the idea for the album came about. Laura also expresses annoyance that most people these days remember Kitty for just one song. Obviously, part of the purpose of this album is to remind people that Kitty wasn't just a one-hit wonder.

Laura's album opens with the title track, an original song that Laura co-wrote as her own tribute to Kitty. An excellent opener, it is followed by nine songs that Kitty recorded, most of which were big hits but also including three songs that a lot of Kitty's fans might not have heard (I don't claim to be an angel, Searching for a soldier's grave, I gave my wedding dress away - all of them can be found on the Bear Family boxed set The Queen of country music - 1949-1958). The inclusion of those songs at the expense of Heartbreak USA (a number one country hit), Release me (now thought of as Engelbert Humperdinck's song, but Kitty's hit dates from 1954 and she wasn't the original artist either) and some of Kitty's other classics should tell you that Laura is a diehard fan of Kitty's music.

Inevitably, Laura included the one song that Kitty is known for - It wasn't God who made honky tonk angels. Kitty was on the point of quitting the music business when she was asked to record this song, and although she agreed to do it, she apparently didn't have high expectations of it. And why should she have done? It was only an answer song to Wild side of life (Hank Thompson), which itself used the same tune as I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes (Carter Family) and Great speckled bird (Roy Acuff). However, the lyrics clearly struck a chord with the public (well, the women at least) and the record became a massive hit in the American country charts, crossing over to the pop charts where it made the top thirty.

Kitty never had a hit that big again although she had two other number one country hits, one of them a duet (One by one, which Laura reprises here with Chuck Mead performing the male vocals). It's just as well that Kitty didn't quit the business because she had unexpectedly become the trailblazer for women in country music. There were other great female singers around at the time including Jean Shepard, Rose Maddox and Rosalie Allen, but while each of them made their mark (and I love their music), none of them came close to matching the success of Kitty Wells.

Another major hit for Kitty (though not a number one, at least on Billboard's charts) was Makin' believe. Webb Pierce spent five months at the top of the Billboard country charts with his cover of In the jailhouse now (a Jimmy Rodgers song), and for most of that time Makin' believe would have been number two. Still, the song has itself become a classic country song recorded by many artists. My first copy of the song came on Emmylou Harris' album Luxury liner, but I've acquired a few others since. Laura's version here is well up to the standard of the others that I've heard..

This is one fantastic album that will hopefully remind the world of Kitty Wells' importance. The female country singers who flourished in the sixties might not have had the opportunities if Kitty Wells had not blazed the trail. Kitty's music is poorly represented on CD, limited mainly to a series of hits compilations that mostly repeat the same tracks. There is that Bear Family set and one or two other releases but not much. Maybe Jasmine, Proper, JSP or one of the other old-time labels will put together a decent compilation of Kitty's music. (Enough of it is public domain under British copyright law for them to do that.) If so, we can then say that Laura Cantrell blazed the trail for a Kitty Wells revival. I think she would like that.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Kitty Wells Dresses 22 Jun 2011
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Kitty Wells truly is one of the all time greats and this album is a splendid tribute to her. The album opens with the title track, written by Laura Cantrell and Amy Wright and the rest is made up of covers of nine songs from Kitty Well's canon. "It wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" is there and my particular favourites are "Poison In Your heart" and "One By One", the latter a duet with Chuck Mead, of BR5-49 fame.As far as I'm concerned, there isn't a dud track on the album. Laura's vocals are superb throughout and, with great backing musicians, the whole album is very much in keeping with the style of Kitty's originals. Having played the cd repeatedly,I find myself hungry for more of the same and, given that the cd is only just over thirty minutes long, I wonder why a few more tracks couldn't have been included.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!!! 15 Oct 2012
By Mike
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this as I have heard quite a lot about Laura Cantrell and thought it was about time I educated myself properly.

What an amazing album, but most of all, what an amazing voice!

I could go on, but I won't, just buy this album, listen to it very carefully and be prepared to be blown away!!!
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