See also Ginny Wright in the Tom Tall and Ginny Wright and Tom Tall entries.
Ginny Wright was born Virginia Henderson on August 1, 1933 in Summit, Georgia, now called Twin City, Georgia. She was discovered by Fabor Robison of Abbott Records in Cleveland, Ohio, where Ginny had gone to work for General Electric. There she began to sing, first opera and popular songs in a 20-piece choral group. She started working with a local country band led by Danny Ford, beginning as half of the Blue Star Girls and then, when the other girl stopped showing up, on her own.
She got a local label, Triple-A, to record her, even though they did not normally do country, but, recalled Jack Gale--a disc jockey who persuaded Triple-A to put out her rendition of the Ray Price song, “You’re Under Arrest” b/w “Goin’ Steady.”—“she was very persistent.” He remembered her: “Ginny was 17 and a ball of fire. She came in and said that she was a female Hank Williams.”
Fabor Robison heard her on the air when he was passing through Cleveland and contacted her through Gale. “Fabor liked the tear in my voice,” she recalled. He asked her to record ten songs, which Gale helped her do at the radio station, and then she heard nothing more.
Until, that his, Robison was passing through again and took her to a Jim Reeves concert, where Fabor was heading. He asked her if she knew the Ferlin Husky and Jean Shepard duet, “A Dear John Letter.” When she said yes, Robison had her sing it on stage with Jim Reeves that night. That abrupt and scary audition led to Ginny Wright’s duet recording with Jim Reeves of “I Love You,” which got to No. 3 in January 1954, where it lasted 22 weeks. The result was Ginny Wright was voted “Best New Female Artist Country and Western” in Downbeat Magazine.
