Every Friday around 11 a.m. Central, it’s time for Classic Americana on Radio Heartland. We pull a special track from the archives or from deep in the shelves to spotlight a particular artist or song.

This week’s Classic Americana pick spotlights a singer and songwriter who helped elevate the profile of women in country music: Dottie West.

Born Oct. 11, 1932, in a small town called Frog Pond located about an hour northeast of Nashville, Tennessee, there’s no sugar-coating the fact that Dorothy Marsh — her name at birth — had a rough childhood. As a high schooler, however, Dorothy got help from her high school teachers and administrators, whose intervention altered the course of Dorothy’s life.

After graduating from high school, Dottie, as she became known, earned a music scholarship to Tennessee Polytechnic Institute (now called Tennessee Technological Insitute). She married steel-guitar player Bill West, and it was then she adopted the name for which she would be known throughout her career: Dottie West.

West’s career began as a singer on a regional TV show in Cleveland, Ohio, and she was eventually encouraged to move to Nashville, where she enjoyed some moderate chart success in the 1960s. A strange breakthrough occurred in 1973, when Dottie West sang a jingle for Coca-Cola that was evolved into the hit song, “Country Sunshine,” which peaked at No. 2 that year. It would be the biggest success West would enjoy for some time.

In 1978, while recording “Every Time Two Fools Collide” at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville, West happened to meet Kenny Rogers, who had time booked at the same studio later that day. West and Rogers sang the song casually together and thought it might work well as a duo. Indeed it did — the song would go on to become a No. 1 hit in the Billboard Country Singles chart. West and Rogers enjoyed subsequent hits as a singing duo, and this reinvigorated interest in West as a solo performer.

West’s big break came in 1979, with the release of her solo album Special Delivery. The album spent 30 weeks in the Country Albums chart, and it spawned three Top 20 singles, including the soul-inflected “A Lesson In Leavin’,” which is our Classic Americana pick this week.

The 1980s saw Dottie West enjoy recording and performing success. Sadly, on September 4, 1991, Dottie West died from injuries received in a car crash on the way to perform at the Grand Ole Opry.

West’s daughter, Shelly West, also enjoyed a career as a singer-songwriter, and was featured as our Classic Americana pick on May 17 of this year.

External Links

Dottie West – Country Music Hall of Fame