Sue Thompson – born Eva Sue McKee in Nevada, Missouri on July 19, 1925 – was a country and pop singer. She learned to play guitar when she was very young and began performing on stage at the age of 7. Married at the age of 17, she was a single mother at only 23 years old. To support her child, she performed as a singer in Californian nightclubs under the name Sue Thompson. Discovered by radio and television host Dude Martin, she put together a support band and eventually signed with Mercury Records in 1950. After a series of singles that failed to chart, she signed with Columbia Records, who asked her to record under the name Taffy Thomas. She reverted back to the name Sue Thompson after she left Columbia and signed with Hickory Records, where she would find her greatest successes. Alternating between traditional pop and country pop, she managed to release a series of hit singles in the U.S.: "Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)" (Number 5) and "Norman" (Number 3), from the Meet Sue Thompson album in 1961; "Have a Good Time" (Number 31) and "Willie Can" (Number 78) from Golden Hits in 1963; and "Paper Tiger" (Number 23) from the 1965 album of the same name. In the early 1970s, Sue Thompson teamed up with country singer Don Gibson for two albums: The Two of Us Together (1972) and Oh, How Love Changes (1975). After a final appearance on the Billboard charts in 1976 with "Never Naughty Rosie", she would only perform sporadically up through the 1990s. Sue Thompson died on September 23, 2021, at the age of 96.
