Johnny Wright | Country-music figure, 97

Johnny Wright, 97, a country-music pioneer who had hits as a singer in the duo Johnnie and Jack and guided the career of his wife, Kitty Wells, died Tuesday at his home in Nashville.

A lifelong Nashville resident, Mr. Wright was a witness to most of country music's greatest moments. He remembered WSM going on the air in 1925 and heard the first broadcast of Uncle Jimmy Thompson, an event that would evolve into the Grand Ole Opry. Later he started his own career and married Wells, the first woman to break through as a star in country music, in 1937.

"With the passing of Johnny Wright, it really brings an end to an era," said close friend Eddie Stubbs, a WSM radio host who came to town as a fiddler for Mr. Wright and Wells.

Mr. Wright came to fame as a member of the country duo Johnnie and Jack, which recorded hits such as "Ashes of Love," "I Get So Lonely," "Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight," and "Poison Love" in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Jack Anglin, the Jack of Johnnie and Jack, died in a car crash in 1963.

Mr. Wright changed the spelling of his name from Johnnie after it was misprinted on a record, then began a solo career with a No. 1 hit, "Hello Vietnam," later featured in the 1987 movie Full Metal Jacket.

Wells was known as "the queen of country music" after she became the first female solo singer to have a No. 1 country record, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," in 1952. The couple's 74th anniversary would have been Oct. 30.

- AP