Born 88 Years Ago Today in Tennessee, the George Jones Duet Partner Who Toured With Roy Acuff and Penned a Major George Strait Hit
Melba Montgomery, a country singer and songwriter born in Tennessee on 14 October 1938, built a career that spanned touring, duet recordings and solo success. Her work with George Jones became more prominent than her early solo releases, while songs she wrote later reached a wide audience through other country artists.
Raised in a musical family, Montgomery won talent contests as a teenager and appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in 1958, leading to four years in Roy Acuff’s touring band. Her 1963 duet “We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds” with Jones reached No. 3 on the country chart; her solo “No Charge” topped the chart in 1974. George Strait later had a top 10 hit with her co-written “What Do You Say to That”; Montgomery retired in 2015 and died ten years later after a long battle with dementia.
- Melba Montgomery was born in Tennessee on 14 October 1938.
- Her duet with George Jones reached No. 3 on the country chart.
- George Strait scored a top 10 hit with her song.
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Country music has long relied on both touring performers and songwriters whose work is recorded by other artists. The Grand Ole Opry, a country music radio show and concert institution in Nashville, helped introduce performers to audiences across the United States.
Roy Acuff was a leading country singer and bandleader, and George Jones became one of the genre’s best-known singers. Duets were a familiar part of country music, while songwriting could bring a performer’s work to wider audiences through recordings by other singers.
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