Country Music’s Preeminent Duet Partner Melba Montgomery Has Died


Before there was Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn, and before there was George Jones and Tammy Wynette, there was George Jones and Melba Montgomery, who helped set the standard for duets in the country music discipline. With her strong dimples and confident voice, Melba helped to make the men she sang with stars.

It was in 1971 when both Conway and Loretta, and George and Tammy went on their magical runs of country duo records. But eight years before in 1963, Melba started recording a series of albums and songs with George Jones herself. George heard Melba’s music, and immediately believed in her, convincing producer Pappy Daily to sign her to United Artists Records.

The duo would go on to release four collaborative albums together between 1963 and 1967. Some of their most famous songs include “We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds” written by Montgomery that went on to be covered by scores of other duet partners, along with “Let’s Invite Them Over,” and “You Comb Her Hair.” It really was the pairing of George Jones and Melba Montgomery that forged the themes of male/female duos in country as a mix of infidelity and comedy.


During this same period, Melba Montgomery paired with Gene Pitney on an album called Being Together in 1965. With the marriage of George Jones and Tammy Wynette launching of their duet era, Melba Montgomery moved on to record two duet albums in 1971 with Charlie Louvin. This whole time, Montgomery also had a solo career and released solo albums, thanks in part to her popularity through George Jones. But how Melba Montgomery remained to be known best was as a duet partner.

Melba was nearly perfect at matching male voices for harmony because she was raised doing it. Born in Iron City, Tennessee, she grew up in Florence, Alabama in a musical family, including her father who was a singing teacher at the local Methodist Church. Montgomery received a guitar at the age of 10, and regularly performed with her brothers Carl and Earl “Peanut” Montgomery as a trio, officially forming a group together in their late teens.

When Montgomery was 20, her and her brothers performed in a talent contest at the WSM studios in Nashville, and impressed Grand Ole Opry patriarch Roy Acuff. Acuff decided to hire Melba as his touring harmony singer, and Montgomery performed with Acuff regularly from 1958 to 1962. This gave Melba the experience she needed in the industry, but it wasn’t until George Jones chose to share billing with Melba that she became a star in country.

Throughout the 1960’s, Melba Montgomery released her own singles through multiple labels, including “Hall of Shame” and “The Greatest One Of All” that made it to #22 and #26 on the country charts respectively. Her sound both as a solo artist and a duet partner was hard country, which won her many fans in traditionalist circles. But as time went on, she became somewhat typecast as a duet singer. There was just something about Melba singing with men that made both voices greater than the sum of their parts.

But then in 1974, songwriter Harlan Howard brought Montgomery a song called “No Charge” that he’d written for her personally. The song features Melba talking in her strong Southern accent, reading off the price for chores performed by her little boy before breaking into singing in the chorus. There was a sweetness to the song that helped shoot it straight to #1, and gave Melba Montgomery a solo hit all on her own.


Montgomery would have another hit in 1975 with “Don’t Let the Good Times Fool You,” but the commercial success of her solo career was brief. However, Melba would spend many more years contributing to country music both on and off the stage. Her brothers Carl and Earl “Peanut” Montgomery had been working in country music as songwriters, and Melba found a second career in this occupation as well.

George Strait, Pam Tillis, Terri Clark, Rhonda Vincent, Patty Loveless, Sarah Evans, Travis Tritt, and others would all record Melba Montgomery songs in the late ’80s and 90s, while she also co-wrote songs with legendary songwriters such as Kostas, Jim Lauderdale, and especially bluegrass artist Carl Jackson. Montgomery’s songwriting career is as much a part of her legacy as anything. And this whole time, Melba continued to record and release albums on independent labels.

In 1999 when John Prine did his famous album of country duets called In Spite of Ourselves, he solicited Melba Montgomery to sing with him on the song she’s made famous with George Jones, “We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds.” As a studio harmony singer, Montgomery worked with Randy Travis and Emmylou Harris among others.

Though Melba Montgomery was mostly known as a duet partner, she was also considered in her era as one of the “First Ladies of Country Music” right beside Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. She may have never forged the landmark solo career similar to the other First Ladies of the era, but her contributions to country music are worthy of remembering all on their own, and as equal to the careers she helped launch through the contributions of her voice.

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Melba Montgomery died on Wednesday, January 15th in Nashville. She was 86 years old. Montgomery was preceded in death by her husband and fellow musician Jack Solomon of The Jones Boys, who passed away in 2014.

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