Laura Cantrell

Wells was born Ellen Muriel Deason in 1919 in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the few country singers born in Nashville.

Here's a review from The Guardian by Robin Denselow
Thursday 21 April 2011

A charmingly 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. Cantrell describes Wells's style as "sounding both emotional and restrained at once", and she follows the same approach with this understated, no-nonsense set, in which the equally restrained and classy backing is provided by musicians from BR549 and Calexico. The title track is by Cantrell, who then moves on to the old Wells favourites, including her best-known hit It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tony Angels, the huge weepie I Gave My Wedding Dress Away, and a quietly powerful treatment of Searching for a Soldier's Grave.