Kitty Wells, country music trailblazer, dies at 92

Country singer Kitty Wells, the most successful and influential female country singer of the 1950s and early ’60s and one of a handful of women to have significant impact at a time when the music was overwhelmingly dominated by men, died Monday in Madison, Tenn. She was 92.

“The history of country music can’t be written without calling attention to her great achievements,” said John Rumble, senior historian at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. “She really has left an indelible mark on American music history.”

Singer Marty Stuart called her “the undisputed queen of country music. There’s more to being a queen than just calling yourself a queen — it’s a title that goes with an entire lifetime of service and influence. You check the careers of anyone in [Nashville], and you won’t find anyone with a more spotless career than Kitty Wells.”

Wells set a template for female singers in country music that started a shift in traditional male-female roles in rural America with “Honky Tonk Angels.” Her recording delivered a strikingly assertive response to Hank Thompson’s 1952 hit “The Wild Side of Life,” in which a man laid all blame on a woman he met in a honky tonk for breaking up his marriage and then leaving him to go “where the wine and liquor flows, where you wait to be anybody’s baby.”

Amy Winehouse Dead: Joins List of Music Idols to Die at 27

The death of popular singer Amy Winehouse, after a long battle with drink and drugs, means the Londoner joins a growing number of tormented musicians to die at the age of 27.

Known as the “27 Club”, Winehouse joins rock legends legends Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Brian Jones, who all died at the age of 27.

Kurt Cobain (1967-1994)
The lead singer of band Nirvana, Cobain had a well-known addiction to heroin, and battled with depression. He died in 1994, aged 27, when his body was found by an electrician who had come to install a security system at his house.

He was found with a shotgun, and it was ruled he died from a gunshot wound to the head. The death was concluded to be suicide, although a private investigator hired by wife Courtney Love hinted that the death was in fact murder.

Jim Morrison (1943-1971)
The lead singer of rock band The Doors was found dead in his bath in a Paris flat in 1971, aged 27. Medics that first examined Morrison reported the death as heart failure and ruled out foul play. Therefore, no official post-mortem was ever carried out into the death.

Friends of the star, however, have claimed he died of a drug overdose. Others have said he suffered from a respiratory condition that had led to him coughing up blood, which he may have choked on.


Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)
Hendrix died in 1970, aged 27. An official post-mortem ruled that he choked on his own vomit. However, recently it was claimed he was murdered. James Wright, a roadie with the Animals, made the murder claim in a book. He wrote that Mike Jeffrey, Hendrix’s manager, had admitted that Hendrix had been killed because he wanted to terminate his management contract. It later emerged that Wright made up the claim to boost book sales.

Brian Jones (1942-1969)
Guitar expert and one of the founding members of The Rolling Stones, Jones died in 1969, again aged 27. He became known for his heavy drug addiction, and was replaced in the bank in 1969 by Mick Taylor. Just weeks later, Jones was found dead in a swimming pool in Sussex, England.

A coroner noted that the rock star’s liver and heart were greatly enlarged at the time of death; indicating heavy drug and alcohol use.

To add controversy to his death, it was later claimed that Jones was killed by his builder, Frank Thorogood because of a debt. Thorogood was said to have confessed the killing just prior to his death in 1993. However, police took no action on the claims.

One Dead, Dozens Hospitalized at Electric Daisy Carnival in Dallas

The Electric Daisy Carnival, a dance music festival in Dallas, Texas featuring sets by Diplo, Paul Van Dyk and Skrillex, got out of hand on Saturday, resulting in the death of one man and the hospitalization of over two dozen other attendees. Investigators have not revealed the cause of death for 19-year-old Andrew Graf, but other concert-goers were hospitalized for hydration and alcohol consumption issues. Billboard has reported that one of these attendees is in critical condition.

It's unclear exactly what went down at the show, but audience crowding was apparently a problem, with Diplo being quoted by the Dallas Observer as saying "It was crazy. There were too many kids on stage." Attendance for the festival is estimated at well over 11,000.
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The Electric Daisy Carnival, a long-running rave that also puts on annual festival events in Nevada, Colorado, Florida and Puerto Rico, has run into similar trouble in the recent past. Following a number of drug-related arrests and the Ecstasy overdose death of a 15-year-old girl last year, the Los Angeles-area Electric Daisy Carnival was canceled and moved to Las Vegas earlier this year.