Nashville Pop Singer Dolores Watson Dies At 96

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Dolores Watson Seigenthaler died on Sunday (Nov. 30) at age 96 while in hospice care.

She was a regionally popular vocalist of the 1940s and 1950s on radio and television who recorded for Decca, RCA and other labels. She was married to John Seigenthaler (1927-2014). He was editor/publisher of The Tennessean in 1962-1991 who attained national notoriety as a civil rights activist, power broker and journalism icon. Nashville’s downtown pedestrian bridge spanning the Cumberland River is named for him.

Dolores Watson was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1929. After her parents divorced, she moved with her mother to Rome, Georgia. Watson began singing at age 14 and made her first record at age 16. While attending Shorter College for Girls, she sang with local bands and on Rome’s WRGA radio.

She won the Southern Radio Queen contest, which led to engagements in Miami and Havana, which was then a popular American tourist destination. In 1946, Watson came to Nashville to perform as a vocalist with Owen Bradley’s dance band at the Club Plantation. Nashville was “dry” at the time and this 1,000-person venue was the biggest of the private clubs serving alcohol. Bradley was hired by Decca Records in 1947 and in 1954-55 built The Quonset Hut as the first business on what became known as Music Row.

Watson auditioned for WSM radio in 1948 and soon became one of the station’s most popular vocalists. She was the featured singer on WSM’s “Sunday Down South,” which was broadcast nationally on NBC.

In 1950, she recorded “Better Dead Than Wed” and “Shovin’ My Lovin’” for Decca as the vocalist in Lenny Dee & His D-Men. RCA Victor also recorded her in 1950 as the duet partner of Slim Whitman on “Let’s Go to Church (Next Sunday Morning).”

WSM launched Nashville’s first TV station that year. WSM-TV (later WSMV, Channel 4) featured her on its daily morning show The Waking Crew and weekly on its Music City U.S.A. Sunday-night program.

Radio work continued as Dolores Watson sang on such programs as “The Jim Reeves Show,” which was picked up for national airing by ABC. Chet Atkins moved to Nashville in 1950. He and Watson starred on WSM’s nightly radio show “Dreamtime.” During the early 1950s she also sang three times weekly on the variety series “Eight O’Clock Time” with a band headed by Bob Lamm.

Centennial Park staged concerts in those days. Dolores Watson starred on one in 1953. The Tennessean sent cub reporter John Seigenthaler to cover it. He met Dolores Watson and was smitten. They married in 1955. By then, she had performed with Eddy Arnold, Minnie Pearl and Whitey Ford, in addition to Reeves, Whitman, Bradley and Atkins.

After her marriage, she continued her singing career for a time. She opened for Elvis Presley in Mississippi in 1955. But son John Michael Seigenthaler was born late that year, and she soon retired from music to raise him. He eventually became an anchorman of the newscasts on NBC and MSNBC, worked for the Associated Press and entered public relations.

Dolores Seigenthaler is survived by her son and his wife, Kerry Brock; by brother, Frank Watson of Athens, Georgia; grandson Jack Seigenthaler, a Harvard Law School student; and by many nieces and nephews.

The family is requesting donations be made online in Dolores Seigenthaler’s name to the two charities where she volunteered most, Ladies of Charity and Room in the Inn.

Robert K Oermann
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