Johnny Wright, a country music pioneer who had hits as a singer in the duo Johnnie and Jack and guided the career of his wife, Kitty Wells, died of natural causes early Tuesday, Sept 27, in Nashville. He was 97 and had been in failing health for some time.

Wright remembered WSM going on the air in 1925 and heard the first broadcast of Uncle Jimmy Thompson, an event that would evolve into the Grand Ole Opry. Later he started his own career and married Wells, the first woman to break through as a star in country music, in 1937.

With the passing of Johnny Wright, it really brings an end to an era, said Eddie Stubbs, a WSM radio host who came to town as a fiddler for Wright and Wells. He saw it all happen right in front of his very eyes, then got to become an active participant in the music, too.

Wright came to fame as a member of the country duo Johnnie and Jack, which recorded hits such as Ashes of Love, I Get So Lonely, Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight and Poison Love in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Wright changed the spelling of his name from Johnnie after it was misprinted on a record, then began a solo career with a No. 1 hit Hello Vietnam, later featured in the 1987 movie Full Metal Jacket.

Wells and Wright had three children: two daughters and a son, Bobby, who also was a singer and actor. He played the part of Willie, a Tennessee moonshiner, on the TV series McHale's Navy.

Wells was known as the queen of country music after she became the first woman solo singer to have a No. 1 country record, It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, in 1952. The couple's 74th anniversary would have been Oct. 30.

He managed her career and put her career ahead of his own, Stubbs said. All the women of country music owe this debt of gratitude to Kitty Wells. Had it not been for Johnny Wright guiding her, there would not have been a Kitty Wells.