Ellen Muriel Deason known professionally as Kitty Wells, is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 singer. Her 1952 hit recording, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

"It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" is a 1952 country song written by J. D. "Jay" Miller, and originally recorded by Kitty Wells. It was an answer song to the Hank Thompson hit "The Wild Side of Life."...

", made her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts, and turned her into the first female country star. Her Top 10 hits continued until the mid-1960s, inspiring a long list of female country singers who came to prominence in the 1960s.

Wells's success in the 1950s and 1960s was so enormous that she still ranks as the sixth most successful female vocalist in the history of the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 country charts, according to historian Joel Whitburn

Joel Whitburn

Joel Carver Whitburn is an American author and music historian.Whitburn founded Record Research Inc. in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, in 1970, and put together a team of researchers to examine in detail all of Billboards music and video charts...

's book The Top 40 Country Hits, behind Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton

Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...

, Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn is an American country music singer-songwriter, author and philanthropist. Born in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky to a coal miner father, Lynn married at 13 years old, was a mother soon after, and moved to Washington with her husband, Oliver Lynn. Their marriage was sometimes tumultuous; he...

, Reba McEntire

Reba McEntire

Reba Nell McEntire is an American country music artist and actress. She began her career in the music industry as a high school student singing in the Kiowa High School band , on local radio shows with her siblings, and at rodeos. As a solo act, she was invited to perform at a rodeo in Oklahoma...

, Tammy Wynette

Tammy Wynette

Virginia Wynette Pugh, known professionally as Tammy Wynette , was an American country music singer-songwriter and one of the genre's best-known artists and biggest-selling female vocalists....

, and Tanya Tucker

Tanya Tucker

Tanya Denise Tucker is a female American country music artist who had her first hit, "Delta Dawn", in 1972 at the age of 13...

.