Melba Montgomery

If anyone was ever born to be a country artist, it’s Melba Joyce Montgomery. A native of Iron City, Tennessee (b. 1938), she was raised near Florence, Alabama, as the daughter of a farmer fiddler and guitarist who taught singing in the local Methodist Church. Her dad gave her a guitar when she was 10 years old. When they weren’t working in the fields, the seven children all grew up singing harmonies and playing banjo, fiddle or guitar. Like Melba, her brothers Carl and Earl “Peanut” Montgomery also became successful country songwriters.

When she was 19, she travelled to Nashville to be in a talent contest staged by WSM radio, the home of the Grand Ole Opry. She won the contest. The Opry’s Roy Acuff was so impressed with her talent that he invited her to become the “girl singer” in his touring troupe. She remained with the star’s show for the next four years. Her first recording sessions were as a harmony vocalist on Acuff’s records for the Hickory label.

Regarded as one of the greatest female stylists of country music’s “golden age,” Melba Montgomery has made her mark as a matchless vocalist as well as an enduring songwriting talent. She became the first hit duet partner of the legendary George Jones. Melba Montgomery’s drawling, soulful, Southern-accented phrasing was the perfect foil for his distinctive, bent-note vocals. The team hit the top-10 in 1963 with her song “We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds”. They recorded multiple albums together. Montgomery then recorded with pop star Gene Pitney, having a hit in 1966 with the song, “Baby Ain’t That Fine”. She then originated the delightful hillbilly romp “Something to Brag About” as a duet with Charlie Louvin. As a solo artist she immortalized country’s all-time motherhood classic “No Charge.” The song hit No. 1 on the charts on Mother’s Day in 1974.

As a studio singer, she has contributed harmony background vocals to recordings by Leon Russell, Randy Travis, B.J. Thomas, Emmylou Harris and other stars.

By 1986, Melba Montgomery had placed 30 songs on country’s popularity charts and released 26 albums — 17 solo efforts and nine duet collections with Jones, Pitney and Louvin. Her recording career was winding down, but she blossomed as a songwriter like never before as she aged into her 50s and 60s. As a songwriter, she has had more than 100 compositions recorded. Melba Montgomery wrote “We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds.” That 1963 hit duet with George Jones has since been recorded by more than two dozen other stars. Her 1970 song “Don’t Keep Me Lonely Too Long” has been recorded by Connie Smith, Skeeter Davis, Eddy Arnold, Dottie West, George Jones and others. Bobby Bare, Hank Williams Jr., Conway Twitty, Kris Krisofferson & Rita Coolidge, Bill Anderson, Roy Drusky and Del Reeves recorded her works.

A host of country stars of the 1990s lined up to record her works — Patty Loveless & Travis Tritt, Tracy Byrd, Ricochet, Sara Evans, Emmylou Harris & Carl Jackson, John Prine, David Ball, Terri Clark, Randy Travis, The Derailers, Reba McEntire and Vern Gosdin, among them. In 1999, superstar George Strait neared the top of the charts with the Jim Lauderdale/Montgomery song “What Do You Say to That.” Her songs also found favor with bluegrass music’s elite — The Lonesome River Band, Rhonda Vincent, Lost Highway. More than 50 different artists have recorded Melba Montgomery songs.

Melba travelled the world in her long career as an artist, but being home with her family is what she loved most. She was preceded in death by her husband of 46 years, Jack Solomon and is survived by her her daughters, Jackie (Blake Chancey), Melissa (Shane Barrett), Tara, Dee Dee (John Cirigliano), her niece Diane, and her grandchildren, Bella, Mollie, Dannielle, Kai, and John and her brother Earl “Peanut” Montgomery.