Dottie West; Sang Country, Top 10 Hits

Singer-songwriter Dottie West, who rose from poverty in rural Tennessee to country music stardom in a career spanning more than 25 years, died Wednesday of injuries suffered in a car accident.

The 58-year-old Grammy-winning performer died at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville during surgery to stop internal bleeding of her liver, severely damaged in the Friday night accident on the way to a Grand Ole Opry performance. The operation was the third since the accident.

Her car had broken down and a retired businessman had given her a lift. Police said the driver, George Thackston, 81, was traveling 55 m.p.h. when he pulled off an exit ramp posted for 25 m.p.h. and veered off the road.

“She was frantic to get to work and told him she had to get there by 8 p.m. and was running too late to call anyone else,” Thackston’s wife, Ruth, told the Nashville Banner.

Thackston was reported Wednesday to be in stable condition.

West, who became the first woman to win a country music Grammy for her 1964 hit, “Here Comes My Baby,” had a Top 10 hit that year in a duet with Jim Reeves titled “Love Is No Excuse.” That same year she was invited to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

She teamed in the late 1970s with Kenny Rogers in a series of top-selling duets, including “Every Time Two Fools Collide,” and one of her biggest hits, “I Was Raised on Country Sunshine.”

Before recording and traveling with Rogers, West was known primarily by country music fans. She had recorded 31 country albums for RCA in more than a dozen years. Her breakthrough into pop acceptance came on a 1981 duet with Rogers titled, “What Are We Doin’ in Love.”

“What made Dottie unique is that when she sang about pain, she felt pain,” Rogers said in Los Angeles after his friend’s death. “When she sang about love, she felt love. And when she sang about beauty, she felt that beauty.

“While some performers sang words, she sang emotions.”

Hard-core country fans accused West, known for a sultry image of high-heeled boots, skintight pants, low-cut blouses and Western hats, of abandoning her musical beginnings.

“Country music has changed, and I’ve changed with it,” she said in answer to her critics. “I like the music I’m doing now better than the music I was singing before. Why stick with what’s old if what’s new is better? I’m never too old to change.”

Dorothy Marie Marsh, the eldest of 10 children, was born on a tiny farm in McMinnvile, Tenn., outside Nashville. She recalled that in her early days on the farm she had to chop cotton, work in sugar cane fields and sometimes cook for her large family.

Her father, Hollis, taught her to play the guitar as a child. Using money she earned in part-time jobs as a teen-ager, she enrolled as a music major at Tennessee Technological University.

She met her future husband, Bill West, during her first week on campus. They were married for 20 years and had four children before their divorce in 1969.

“I was from a very strict family,” West once recalled. “I wasn’t allowed to date. When I was in college I married the first man who kissed me.”

West was married and divorced twice more to younger men.

“Older men have been chasing young girls for years,” she said, “so it should be OK for women to be involved with younger guys. Why should I go around with some old fuddy-duddy if I don’t want to? I’m attracted to younger men and I’m not afraid to admit it--a lot of older women are attracted to younger men but they’re afraid to admit it. I don’t mind saying it. I have nothing to hide.”

West, a prolific songwriter, recalled in an 1989 interview how hard it was for a woman to break into country music in the early 1960s.

“It was tough, especially to work on the road,” she said. “I don’t think they felt girl singers sold tickets. They (booking agents) felt people only brought tickets to hear the male singers. . . . They put a package (show) together, and they had six or seven guys and one girl. They needed a skirt on the show. When I hit that stage, I went for the applause just as hard as the guys.”

Despite her success, West’s financial condition had waned in recent years. She filed for bankruptcy in 1990, more than $1 million in debt. The Internal Revenue Service auctioned her belongings during the annual Country Music Fan Fair this summer.

She attended and signed autographs.

WEST OPENED DOORS: Robert Hilburn describes how Dottie West helped pave the way for women in country music. F7