Country music history is full of big breaks. Some of the best ones happened because one artist heard something special in another and decided to help. Dottie West got that kind of help from Jim Reeves. Years later, she passed it on.
From rural Tennessee to Music City
Dottie West was born Dorothy Marie Marsh on October 11, 1932, in rural Tennessee, the oldest of ten children. Music was her way forward. While studying at Tennessee Tech, she met a fellow student and steel guitar player named Bill West. They married, and she took the name she would make famous.
The couple spent weekends driving to Nashville to make connections. Dottie auditioned for Starday Records in 1959, but the records she made there went nowhere. In 1961, the Wests moved to Nashville for good.
There, she became close friends with Patsy Cline. Patsy hired Bill to play guitar in her band, and Dottie helped out with the wardrobe. Patsy became her mentor and one of her best friends, until Patsy’s death in a plane crash in March 1963.
The first song she ever wrote
According to Dottie, the first song she ever wrote was “Is This Me?” She recorded a demo of it with the help of steel guitarist Pete Drake. Somehow that demo reached Jim Reeves, one of the biggest stars at RCA Victor. He liked the song enough to record it himself, and in 1963 “Is This Me?” became a Top 5 country hit.
Jim Reeves heard more than a good song on that demo. He liked Dottie’s singing voice, too. He brought her to the attention of Chet Atkins, the guitarist and producer who ran RCA Victor in Nashville and shaped the smooth Nashville Sound. Atkins signed her shortly afterward.
“Here Comes My Baby”
Dottie’s first RCA singles came out in 1963, and “Let Me Off at the Corner” gave her a first taste of the charts. In 1964, she and Jim Reeves recorded a duet, “Love Is No Excuse,” which reached the Top 10.
That same year, Chet Atkins produced a song Dottie had written, “Here Comes My Baby.” It became her first big solo hit, reaching the Top 10 and earning her an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry. It also won the very first Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, making Dottie West the first woman in country music ever to win a Grammy.
Jim Reeves did not live to see how far she would go. In July 1964, he died in a plane crash near Nashville. Within little more than a year, Dottie had lost both Patsy Cline and the man who opened the door at RCA for her.
A long career and a big heart
With Chet Atkins producing, Dottie kept the hits coming with “Would You Hold It Against Me,” “Paper Mansions” and “Rings of Gold,” a duet with Don Gibson. Her song “Country Sunshine” grew out of a famous Coca-Cola jingle she wrote. Later, her duets with Kenny Rogers, including “Every Time Two Fools Collide,” won the CMA Vocal Duo award in 1978 and 1979.
But many in Nashville remembered her just as much for the way she helped others. The Country Music Hall of Fame notes that she boosted the careers of Larry Gatlin, Jeannie Seely and Steve Wariner.
Eight songs and a plane ticket
The Larry Gatlin story is the best known. In the early 1970s, Gatlin was a young man from Texas studying law at the University of Houston. A trip to Las Vegas, where he auditioned to sing with a gospel group, put him in the same place as Dottie West, who was opening for Jimmy Dean at the Landmark Hotel.
Dottie thought he looked a lot like the Nashville songwriter Mickey Newbury. As Gatlin tells it, she told him in her dressing room that with that resemblance, he had to be able to write great songs. Gatlin went home to Houston, wrote eight songs and mailed them to her. Dottie answered by sending him a plane ticket to Nashville.
She recorded some of his songs, passed his demo tapes around town and introduced him to people who mattered, including Kris Kristofferson, who helped him land a record deal with Monument Records. Larry Gatlin and his brothers went on to become one of the most popular acts in country music.
Gatlin never forgot where it started. After Dottie’s death, he put it in his own words:
“Larry Wayne would’ve probably been a bad lawyer somewhere in Houston.”
Passing it on
Dottie West died on September 4, 1991, at age 58, from injuries suffered in a car accident while she was on her way to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. Kenny Rogers said that while some people sing words, Dottie sang emotions.
Her story is a reminder that a career can turn on one small act of faith. Jim Reeves heard a demo from a young songwriter and decided to help. Years later, that songwriter heard eight songs from a young man in Houston and did exactly the same thing.