Connie Hall obit

Inez Hellman Obituary

 

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Inez Hellmann (nee Kerr), 91

La Grange

Inez Hellmann (nee Kerr), a long-time resident of La Grange died Thursday, Jan.7 at Forest Springs Health Campus at the age of 91.

As Connie Hall, she enjoyed brief success as a country music singer and songwriter in the late 1950s and 1960s. She had several hits with various music labels, including "It's Not Wrong" and "Fool Me Once" and performed on the Grand Ole Opry, Louisiana Hayride and Midwestern Hayride. Over the years she met and become friends with many country singers, including Buck Owens, Loretta Lynn, Ernest Tubb and Bill Anderson to name a few. At the height of her career she was recognized as a Kentucky Colonel.

Hall kept in touch with the music world in later years through the Country Music Foundation. She contributed a substantial country music record collection to the Foundation's museum as well as a quilt she made which bears the autographs of 42 country stars, including one of the last signatures of Jim Reeves. In June 1973 she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Hall had a career as a country music artist in the late 1950s and 1960s. This was helped by her two hits "Fool Me Once" and "It's Not Wrong". Hall was born in Walden, Kentucky, but grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. She started singing and performing as a teenager. At age 21, Hall worked at the Jimmie Skinner Music Center in Ohio. She soon got a spot on a radio show on WZIP in Covington, Kentucky, the birthplace of popular 1960s Country singer Skeeter Davis. It was in 1954 that Jimmie Skinner hired Hall to sing on his radio show at WNOP in Newport, Kentucky, and Hall accepted. She appeared on his show, and others, regularly for several years and also worked as a weather girl on Jimmy Skinner's television show.

In 1957, Hall signed a recording contract with Mercury Records. Her recording debut came that same year. The debut single was a duet with Jimmie Skinner called "We've Got Things In Common". The song was very successful, climbing to Top 10 in Billboard. She released her first single as a solo artist in 1958, with the song "I'm the Girl In the USA". Once again, her single climbed the charts.

The following year, 1959, proved to be more successful than the previous two years. The single she released that year, called "The Bottle or Me", peaked in the Country Top 40 and came close to making the Top 20. In 1960, Hall signed on with Decca Records (which would become the future home of Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn). Her producer Harry Silverstein promised Hall would have a hit. With his help, she soon achieved one. He produced Hall's first two singles, which were released on a back-to-back single. The A-side of the single was the song "There's Poison In Your Hand". The A-side made it to the Country Top 25 in 1960. Its B-side, "It's Not Wrong" (which was an answer song to the 1958 Warner Mack hit "Is it Wrong (For Loving You)?"), became Hall's biggest hit. The song reached the Country Top 20, meaning Hall had achieved an official hit song.

For three more years, Hall remained under Decca Records, making seven more hits, such as "Sleep, Baby Sleep" and "Fool Me Once". Also during this time, she performed on the Grand Ole Opry, Louisiana Hayride, and Midwestern Hayride. In 1964, Hall left Decca Records and switched to Musicor Records, where she remained until 1967.

For the next two decades she worked for Centerfield Elementary School.

She is survived by her husband of 70 years, John, her son John Jr. (JoAnn), grandchildren Tony and Jennifer, and great-grandsons Roman and Julian. Long-time neighbors and friends Theresa and Kenny went above and beyond in the past few years to assist both her and her husband.

There will be no funeral service. Interment will be at Valley of Rest in La Grange, Kentucky.