ROOTS of Country Music

The Professional Work of Goldie Hill

(Jan. 11, 1933 – Feb. 24, 2005)

Born Argolda Voncile Hill, Goldie was a country music singer and one of the first women in country music to reach the top of the country music charts with her number-one1953 debut hit, I Let the Stars Get In My Eyes. Along with Kitty Wells, she set the standard for future women in country music, such as Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynnette, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton.

Goldie Hill, younger sister of Tommy Hill, was born in 1933 in Karnes County, Texas. Music played a huge part in the Hill family. The radio was one way to block out the daily backbreaking work of picking cotton. Goldie soaked up the popular country music of the era and developed a talent for singing. Early on, Goldie's older brothers Tommy and Ken left a life of cotton picking determined to break into country music. Within a few years, they were backing up Hank Williams, Johnny Horton and Webb Pierce. Sister Goldie officially got her start on the Louisiana Hayride in 1953 as part of Tommy's band, billed as "the Golden Hillbilly."

Hill might have had a long career in country music had she stuck with it. Some music critics said she had a strong and twangy voice that can be heard in some other country singers of the 1960s like Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. With the success of Kitty Wells and her massive 1952 hit It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, Hill was able to pursue her own career after record companies realized from the success of Wells' hit that women could indeed sell records.

Among her other charting tunes were several duets with Ernest Tubb's son, Justin Tubb, including Looking Back to See (No. 4, 1954) and a top-20 song with Red Solvine titled Are You Mine (No 14, 1955).

In 1957 she married country singer Carl Smith following his divorce from June Carter. In the late '60s Goldie made a short-lived comeback as Goldie Hill Smith, without much success. Following Carl Smith's retirement from music in the late '70s, he and Goldie lived on their horse farm outside of Franklin, Tennessee, and the two began to show horses professionally during the course of the decade.

On February 11, 2005, Hill died from complications of cancer. She was 72 years old.