This week in Texas music history: Goldie Hill is born

On Jan. 11, 1933, country singer Goldie Hill was born outside Karnes City, TX.

Goldie began playing music as a teenager with her two older brothers, Kenny and Tommy Hill, securing gigs in nearby San Antonio as “The Texas Hillbillies” and backing singing cowboy acts like Red River Dave and Big Bill Lister.

They gained traction by the early 1950s, catching the ear of honky-tonker Webb Pierce. Pierce invited Goldie and Tommy to join his band on Shreveport’s famed Louisiana Hayride radio show. Riding this wave, at just 19, Hill auditioned as a solo singer at Decca Records in Nashville – who had also recently signed Kitty Wells – and in 1952 she released her first single, “Why Talk to My Heart.”

The following year, her second record, “I Let the Stars Get in My Eyes,” an answer song to Slim Willet’s “Don’t Let the Stars Get in our Eyes,” became a country number-one hit.

Hill was dubbed “The Golden Hillbilly,” performing on programs such as Ozark Jubilee, the Grand Ole Opry, and the Country Tune Parade with Ernest Tubb. She married country singer Carl Smith in 1957 and toured with him in the Philip Morris Country Music Show for a few years before largely retiring from the music industry.

Although she recorded sporadically in the decades to follow, her disillusionment with opportunities for women singers led her to find fulfillment away from the spotlight. Hill lived out the remainder of her years on her family ranch before passing away in 2005.

Often overlooked for her role in Texas music, Goldie Hill set a precedent for women in country music for years to come.

Sources

Alan Clayson, “Goldie Hill obituary,” The Guardian. March 29, 2005.

Mary A. Bufwack and Robert K. Oermann. Finding Her Voice: The Saga of Women in Country Music. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2003

Caroline Gnagy in Laurie E. Jasinski, Gary Hartman, Casey Monahan, and Ann T. Smith, eds. The Handbook of Texas Music. Second Edition. Denton, TX: Texas State Historical Association, 2012.

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