Dottie West

Dorothy Marie Marsh West (October 11, 1932 – September 4, 1991) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Along with her friends and fellow recording artists Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, she is considered one of the genre's most influential and groundbreaking female artists. West's career started in the 1960s, with her top-10 hit, " Here Comes My Baby Back Again", which won her a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1965, the first woman in country music to receive a Grammy.

In the early 1970s, West wrote a popular commercial for the Coca-Cola company, titled " Country Sunshine", which reached number two on ''Billboard's'' Hot Country Singles in 1973. In the late 1970s, she teamed up with country pop superstar Kenny Rogers for a series of duets that took her career to new highs, earning platinum-selling albums and number-one records for the first time.

Her duet recordings with Rogers, " Every Time Two Fools Collide", " All I Ever Need Is You", and "What Are We Doin' in Love", became country music standards. In the mid-1970s, her image and music underwent a metamorphosis, bringing her to the peak of her popularity as a solo act, and reaching number one on her own for the first time in 1980 with " A Lesson in Leavin'".

In 2018, West was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Early life

Childhood and teen years

Dorothy Marie Marsh was born on October 11, 1932, to Pelina Artha (née Jones; 1915–1970) and William Hollis Marsh (1908–1967) in a community called Frog Pond about 64 miles northeast of Nashville, Tennessee, United States. She was the eldest of 10 children. The family was extremely poor. To help alleviate the financial strain, West's mother opened up a restaurant and young Dottie helped her run it.

Dottie's father Hollis Marsh was an alcoholic who beat and sexually abused her until she was 17 and reported him to the local sheriff. She testified in court against her father and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison, where he died in 1967.

After living with the sheriff for a short time, she moved to McMinnville with her mother and siblings. She also joined her high-school band, "The Cookskins", where she sang and played guitar. In 1951, she obtained a music scholarship to Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee. There, she met her first husband, steel guitarist Bill West, with whom she had four children, including country music star Shelly West. She continued to use his surname professionally.

Career discovery

After graduation, West moved with her family to Cleveland, Ohio, where she began appearing on the television program ''Landmark Jamboree'', as one half of a country pop vocal duo called the "Kay-Dots" alongside partner Kathy Dee. At the same time, West made numerous trips to Nashville in the hopes of landing a recording deal. In 1959, Bill and she auditioned for producer Don Pierce at Starday, and were offered a recording contract. The singles West cut for the label proved unsuccessful, but she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, two years later, where her husband and she fell in with aspiring songwriters, including Willie Nelson, Roger Miller, Hank Cochran, and Harlan Howard. West often played hostess to these struggling songwriters, offering them a place to stay and eat. In return, they taught West about the structure of songwriting. During this time, she also became a close friend of Patsy Cline and her husband, Charlie Dick.

Cline became one of West's biggest career inspirations. As West related to Ellis Nassour in the 1980 book ''Patsy Cline'', the greatest advice Cline ever gave her was, "When you're onstage sing to the audience with all of your heart and mean it. Then cast a spell over them. If you can't do it with feeling, then don't." In their early days in Nashville, West and her family often did not have enough to pay the rent or buy the week's groceries, so Cline would hire her to help with her wardrobe, and West's husband Bill to play in her band. Cline even offered to help pay West's rent or buy groceries, when she and Bill were struggling to stay in Nashville.

On March 5, 1963, Cline died in a plane crash along with Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and her pilot and manager Randy Hughes on her way home from a benefit at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, a concert West also attended. West had asked Cline to ride with Bill and her in their car, but Cline, anxious to get back home to her children, opted to fly, instead.

In 1963, Jim Reeves recorded a song written by West called "Is This Me", becoming a number-three hit that year. As a result, Reeves helped West secure a recording contract with RCA Victor.

Country music career

1963–1975: Country success

left, upWest 1965
West earned her first top-40 hit in 1963 with "Let Me Off at the Corner", followed a year later by the top-10 duet with Jim Reeves, "Love Is No Excuse". Also in 1964, she auditioned for RCA Victor producer Chet Atkins, the architect of the Nashville sound, who agreed to produce her composition " Here Comes My Baby". The single made West the first female country artist to win a Grammy Award (''Best Female Country Vocal Performance''), leading to an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry. "Here Comes My Baby" reached number 10 on ''Billboard'' country charts in 1964. After releasing the '' Here Comes My Baby'' LP in 1965, West and producer Chet Atkins reunited the following year for '' Suffer Time,'' which generated her biggest hit yet in "Would You Hold It Against Me". In 1967, the West/Atkins pairing issued three separate albums: '' With All My Heart and Soul'' (featuring the number-eight smash "Paper Mansions"), '' Dottie West Sings Sacred Ballads'', and '' I'll Help You Forget Her''.

During the same period, she also appeared in a pair of films, ''Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar'' and ''There's a Still on the Hill''. She continued to have success as a solo artist during the late 1960s, with such songs as "What's Come Over My Baby" and "Country Girl", which garnered her an offer to write a commercial based on it for Coca-Cola in 1970. The soft-drink company liked the result so much, it signed her to a lifetime contract as a jingle writer.

After the 1968 LP '' Country Girl'', West teamed with Don Gibson for a record of duets, ''Dottie and Don'', featuring the number-two hit " Rings of Gold" released in 1969. The album was her last with Atkins, and she followed it in 1970 with two releases, '' Forever Yours'' and '' Country Boy and Country Girl'', a collection of pairings with Jimmy Dean. Around the time of '' Have You Heard Dottie West'', released in 1971, she left her husband Bill, and in 1972, married drummer Byron Metcalf, who was 12 years her junior. Due possibly in part to her recent stratospheric success with duets, her solo career suffered between 1969 and 1972. Most of her singles released at the time had failed even to peak in the top 40, and her album sales were declining.

In 1973, West provided Coca-Cola with another advertisement, featuring a song called " Country Sunshine". The popularity of the commercial prompted her to release the song as a single, and it became one of her biggest hits, reaching number two on the country chart and number 49 on the pop chart. The ad itself netted a Clio Award for commercial of the year and she became the first country artist ever to win that particular honor. "Country Sunshine" proved to be a solid comeback, as she was nominated for two Grammys for the song, Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance a year later.

After the release of ''House of Love'' in 1974, West notched a number of top-40 hits, including the top-10 "Last Time I Saw Him

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