1967 On
Continuing to record with Owen Bradley, Burgess placed seven more singles on the C&W chart but only the first two of these: "Fifteen Days" (#24) and "Tear Time" (#15) both 1967 reached the Top 40.
Burgess association with Bradley and Decca Records ended in 1971; that same year she signed with Shannon a label owned by Jim Reeves Enterprises (Burgess was a close friend of Reeves' widow Mary Reeves). Five of Burgess' single releases on Shannon appeared on the C&W chart with the 1973 duet with Bud Logan "Wake Me Into Love" providing an on-off return to the Top 40 at No. 14.
In 1975 Burgess left Shannon signing with RCA Records where her uneventful tenure lasted until 1978.
In 1982 she ended her recording career with the album Could I Have This Dance on 51West a Columbia Records label.
Later in the decade Burgess opened the Hitching Post - described as Nashville's first women-only bar - where she regularly performed.
Burgess also worked on and off with Mary Reeves running the Jim Reeves Museum in Nashville.
It has been noted by Jim Ed Brown that Burgess was also a decent poker player, having taken both Ernest Tubb and Tubb's bus driver's money while on tour together.
Burgess was openly a lesbian and preferred to record love songs with no gender-specific references. She did sometimes agree to record songs such as "Ain't Got No Man" on condition that her producer Owen Bradley let her record a song she liked but he didn't.
Read more about this topic: Wilma Burgess