Wilma Burgess

Born Wilma Charlene Burgess on 11 June 1939 in Orlando, Florida, USA, she died on 26 August 2003 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Following high school she enrolled at Orlando’s Stetson University to pursue a physical-education degree, never envisioning any future in music. At that stage her tastes ran exclusively to pop until an Eddy Arnold concert prompted a decisive shift. Once she graduated in 1960 a friend urged her to travel to Nashville and cut demonstration recordings of his material. Owen Bradley heard the results, liked what he heard, and immediately placed her on the Decca roster. From 1965 through 1969 her big-ballad style yielded four Top 20 country singles—“Baby,” “Don’t Touch Me,” “Misty Blue,” and “Tear Time.” She exited Decca in 1973 for Shannon, the label owned by Jim Reeves Enterprises, where she scored a handful of lesser hits, among them a Top 20 duet with Bud Logan—former leader of Reeves’ band the Blue Boys—on “Wake Me Into Love.” Her final chart entry arrived in 1975, after which she continued to record for RCA until 1978.