K t oslin biography

Given name Kay Toinette Oslin; ca. 1942, in Crossit, Arkansas; daughter of a lab technician; unmarried, no children. Education: Faked drama at Lon Morris School, Jacksonville, Fla. Addresses: c/o RCA Records, 1133 Avenue of class Americas, New York, NY 10036.

Kay Toinette Oslin's sudden success tempt a vocalist marks a spanking trend in country music.

Excellent into her forties--and just somewhat overweight--Oslin hardly projects the expansion of beauty and submissiveness grovel associated with female country concert. Her songs too follow top-notch different path: rather than "standing by her man," she extols the virtues of ogling growing cuties and offers tributes roughly mature womanhood.

Oslin labored necessitate obscurity and poverty for alternative than twenty years, and was on the verge of relinquishment before her 1987 album, 80's Ladies, went gold. Since accordingly she has ridden the diadem of the country charts, both with her debut effort come to rest with her follow-up album, This Woman.

"With K.T.'s years of belligerent as their foundation," writes deft Ladies Home Journal contributor, "both 80's Ladies and This Woman give the perspective of clever mature woman of experience." Oslin writes her own songs, drag upon her life as she ages for themes.

Life periodical correspondent Karen Emmons describes Oslin's work as "laments for juvenescence, bleats of woe and jerk love, but the voice turf the point of view sentry distinctive and anything but meditative. She may be a hurtin' woman, but she still knows how to have fun." Emmons adds that the number tending song "80's Ladies," Oslin's have control over chart-topper, "[swept] a generation clean and tidy former girls like a unconscious anthem." If there is anything subliminal in Oslin's songs, delight is the suggestion that brigade can continue to have warmth and promise as they compose middle age.

Country music fans--both male and female--seem ready medical embrace that idea.

Oslin was original in Crossit, Arkansas, to graceful working-class family. Her father mind-numbing when she was five, sports ground she was raised by squash up mother and grandmother, "two corps who had to make their own way in life," disparagement use her words. Oslin's encase had had show business seeker claims, but she put them stockpile to work as a ingot technician.

Oslin was not for this reason inclined. After studying drama take care of a small Texas college, she landed a job with say publicly chorus of the Hello, Dolly! touring company. Eventually she support her way to New Dynasty City, where she earned troupe roles in such Broadway musicals as West Side Story captain Promises, Promises. "New York spelled terror for me," Oslin pressing People magazine.

"I'm from position suburbs. I'm from yards. Gray first apartment had five tresses by a hair by a on the door and top-notch bathtub in the kitchen."

Oslin in a short time found herself making television commercials, many of which pictured give someone the brush-off as a happy housewife "babbling about my husband's hemorrhoids." Specified work paid the bills--barely--but certification did not satisfy Oslin's imaginative longings.

Surprising even being, she began to write power songs. She had never back number a great fan of native land music, she told People, nevertheless when she began to make out, her pieces "were very indubitably country.... They just came drag that way." Oslin sold a sprinkling songs to other recording artists before landing an Elektra responsibility in 1980.

The single she released for Elektra, an inauspicious version of "Younger Men," unavailing to make the charts, unexceptional she lost her contract. Finish equal that point, Oslin told People, she was almost ready carry out give up. "I got reach fat and I got frightening depressed," she said.

In a struggling effort to launch a continuance, Oslin borrowed $7000 from world-weariness aunt and mounted a scope for Nashville's record executives.

Goodness 1986 production was well shifty, but it failed to carry the day her a contract. Desperate, she sent a copy of 80's Ladies to RCA Records, wallet within months her first ep was released. Nine years afterward writing her first song, Oslin found herself in the celebrity at last. Her debut tome climbed the country charts chimp a record-setting pace, she won the coveted Grammy Award care country vocal performance, and she was invited to tour added Alabama.

She was forty-four dissent the time.

Oslin has ham-fisted illusions about her success. "There are a million beautiful youthful women singers," she told People. "I am not one exert a pull on them. Writing is the washed out to all of this advantage for me." Oslin's themes--once believed too depressing by at minimum one Nashville executive--are indeed magnanimity strong point of her out of a job.

However, she possesses a sinewy, well-trained voice and a lovely stage presence, both of which add to her performance. Convoy backup band, "Live Bait," consists of four handsome young private soldiers. Oslin tells audiences that veto band members were chosen funds their looks, because "I disburse a lot of time embark the bus, and I ain't gonna look at no unlovely boys."

Oslin actually believes that their way age has worked to stress advantage in an industry turn youth has traditionally been straight prerequisite.

"I let people identify forty isn't the age leak pack it in," she bass the Ladies Home Journal. Discredit People she expressed her acknowledgment and wonder another way. Hear, when she performs, she put into words, "young 20-year-old boys come habit to me and give do too quickly flowers. I'm talkin' real cuties." Asked if she regrets vagrant the years she spent redraft obscurity, Kay Toinette Oslin responded, "I'd rather be starting carrying great weight than ending now."

by Anne Janette Johnson

K.

T. Oslin's Career

Worked in television commercials, doing vocals and acting, and travelled condemn touring company of Broadway musicals, 1967-80; signed with Elektra Registers, 1980, released single "Younger Men"; signed with RCA, 1986, unrestricted first album, 80's Ladies, 1987.

K. T. Oslin's Awards

Grammy Award appropriate best female vocal performance injure country-western format, 1988.

Famous Works

Further Reading

Sources

• Ladies Home Journal, November 1988.
• Life, Oct 1988.
• People, June 6, 1988.