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Texan troubadour Goldie Hill has died at 72 after a long battle with cancer. The singer, wed to Country Music Hall Of Fame member Carl Smith, died in the same Nashville Baptist hospital as Smith's first wife June Carter Cash and husband Johnny.

Hill's death broke a link of sorts with the Cash clan. Carl, her husband of 48 years, is the father of four times country star Carlene Carter. Hill began singing with her brothers Tommy and Ken Hill in her teens when they lived on a cotton farm. They backed up Hank Williams, Johnny Horton and Webb Pierce.

Goldie and Tommy joined Webb Pierce's band in 1952 and performed with him on the famed Louisiana Hayride on radio station KWKH in Shreveport. She accompanied Pierce to Nashville to record in 1952, auditioned for Pierce's label, Decca Records and was signed immediately. She was soon dubbed The Golden Hillbilly.

Hill's first single was Why Talk to My Heart - an answer song to Ray Price hit, Talk to Your Heart. The B-side was Don't Send Me No More Roses. It failed to chart. In 1953 Hill reigned at #1 for three weeks with I Let the Stars Get in My Eyes - an answer to Slim Willet's classic Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes. The song was written by brother Tommy who also wrote Pierce's big 1954 hit, Slowly. It was originally intended for Kitty Wells. The same year she debuted on the Grand Ole Opry and was named Country Song Roundup's Best Female Artist.

But the singer never surpassed the success of her first hit.

In 1954, she teamed with Justin Tubb for the single Looking Back to See (written by Maxine Brown of the Browns). It peaked at #4 and was the title track of Australian duo Bill Chambers and Audrey Auld Mezera's 1998 duet disc on Reckless Records.

Over the next five years, Hill charted only thee times, once with Tubb on Sure Fire Kisses - and twice with Red Sovine - Are You Mine and Yankee Go Home. On Sept. 19, 1957, Hill married Carl Smith and retired from show business. But in 1959 Decca issued Yankee, Go Home, which had a narration on it by Red Sovine, and it went into the Top 20.

In 1968 she signed with Epic and cut two albums but only one single made the charts. Lovable Fool, released under the name Goldie Hill Smith, reached #73 but she never charted after that.

Following Carl Smith's retirement from music in the late '70s, he and Goldie lived on their horse farm outside of Franklin in Tennessee and showed horses professionally for more than a decade. Hill is survived by her husband Carl and three children, Carl Jr., Larry Dean and Lori Lynn.

Background information From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hill was born in Karnes City, Texas in 1933, a small town southeast of San Antonio. She was the sister of singer Tommy Hill. She performed on Louisiana Hayride. She had a contract with Decca Records. Her first single, "Why To Talk to My Heart", was released in 1952.

Hill recorded the song "I Let the Stars Get In My Eyes" the same year. In 1954, she followed up with two hit duets with singer Justin Tubb, son of Ernest Tubb. In the early 1960s, she recorded two albums for Decca Records. She married country singer Carl Smith in 1957.

She made a short-lived comeback in the late 1960s on the label Epic Records under the name Goldie Hill Smith. On February 24, 2005, Hill died from complications of cancer. She was 72 years old.

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