DAVE'S DIARY - 26 FEBRUARY 2005 - GOLDIE HILL RIP

GOLDIE HILL RIP @ 72

BORN ANGOLDA VONCILE HILL - JANUARY 11, 1933
COY CITY, KANES COUNTY, TEXAS
DIED NASHVILLE FEBRUARY 24, 2005

CHART TOPPER AT 20


Goldie Hill

Texan troubadour Goldie Hill has died at 72 after a long battle with cancer.

The singer, wed to Country Music Hall Of Fame member Carl Smith, died in the same Nashville Baptist hospital as Smith's first wife June Carter Cash and husband Johnny.

Hill's death broke a link of sorts with the Cash clan.

Carl, her husband of 48 years, is the father of four times country star Carlene Carter.

Hill began singing with her brothers Tommy and Ken Hill in her teens when they lived on a cotton farm.

They backed up Hank Williams, Johnny Horton and Webb Pierce.

Goldie and Tommy joined Webb Pierce's band in 1952 and performed with him on the famed Louisiana Hayride on radio station KWKH in Shreveport.

She accompanied Pierce to Nashville to record in 1952, auditioned for Pierce's label, Decca Records and was signed immediately.

She was soon dubbed The Golden Hillbilly.

Hill's first single was Why Talk to My Heart - an answer song to Ray Price hit, Talk to Your Heart.

The B-side was Don't Send Me No More Roses.

It failed to chart.

In 1953 Hill reigned at #1 for three weeks with I Let the Stars Get in My Eyes - an answer to Slim Willet's classic Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes.

The song was written by brother Tommy who also wrote Pierce's big 1954 hit, Slowly.

It was originally intended for Kitty Wells.

The same year she debuted on the Grand Ole Opry and was named Country Song Roundup's Best Female Artist.

But the singer never surpassed the success of her first hit.

BILL AND AUDREY

In 1954, she teamed with Justin Tubb for the single Looking Back to See (written by Maxine Brown of the Browns).

It peaked at #4 and was the title track of Australian duo Bill Chambers and Audrey Auld Mezera's 1998 duet disc on Reckless Records.

Over the next five years, Hill charted only thee times, once with Tubb on Sure Fire Kisses - and twice with Red Sovine - Are You Mine and Yankee Go Home.

On Sept. 19, 1957, Hill married Carl Smith and retired from show business.

But in 1959 Decca issued Yankee, Go Home, which had a narration on it by Red Sovine, and it went into the Top 20.

In 1968 she signed with Epic and cut two albums but only one single made the charts.

Lovable Fool, released under the name Goldie Hill Smith, reached #73 but she never charted after that.

Following Carl Smith's retirement from music in the late '70s, he and Goldie lived on their horse farm outside of Franklin in Tennessee and showed horses professionally for more than a decade.

Hill is survived by her husband Carl and three children, Carl Jr., Larry Dean and Lori Lynn.


Goldie Hill's Costume

CARL SMITH - THE WIDOWER


Carl Smith
 Goldie's husband Carl Smith was born on March 15, 1927 in Maynardsville in Tennessee - also the birthplace of Roy Acuff.

Smith has charted 93 singles in a career that spanned more than 30 years.

He had 31 #10 hits in the fifties and for 25 year from 1951-1974 had at least one hit on the Billboard country chart.

Carl was one of the first country artists to perform and record with a drummer - giving his honky tonk music a hard edge.

Smith sold flower seeds to buy his first guitar and mowed grass to pay for lessons - at 15 he played with San Francisco based Kitty Dibble and her Dude Ranch Ranglers.

Like many peers he worked as a DJ - in 1948 at WROL Knoxville while playing bass for Skeets Williamson and Molly O' Day and in 1949 at WWNC Asheville in North Carolina.

He moved to Nashville in 1950, exchanged tungsten wedding bands with June Carter in 1952 and scored his first #1 with Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way and then Hey Joe and Loose Talk.

Smith and Carter split when daughter Carlene was only two.

He married Goldie in 1957 - the same year he appeared in his first movie Badge Of Marshall Brennan.

And in 1962 he starred in Buffalo Guns along with Pierce and Marty Robbins.

In 1967 he charted in the Top 10 for the last time with Deep Water.

He recorded for Hickory from 1975-8 before retiring from music in 1979 until 1981 when he cut updated versions of his hits for a TV special.


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