1952–1957 Arthur toured in 1954 with the RCA country and Western caravan, with
Hank Snow, by
Greyhound tour bus. Artists on the tour included
Chet Atkins,
Minnie Pearl,
Hawkshaw Hawkins, the
New Davis sisters and
Betty Cody, with
Eddie Hill as the tour "Master of Ceremonies". They played
Charlotte, North Carolina,
Mobile, Alabama,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and
Tulsa, Oklahoma. At the
Little Rock, Arkansas show, RCA sent a recording engineer who taped the show and later issued on
EP record RCA EPB 3220, entitled "Country and Western Caravan 1954". The height of her career was in 1955. That year she recorded for RCA, under
Steve Sholes and
Chet Atkins. In a national poll she was voted the nation's second best country artist (after
Kitty Wells). She continued to tour and played with
Elvis Presley a number of times in Texas throughout 1955, including on the
Big D Jamboree show when Elvis made his first appearance there on 16 April. In 1956, however, she parted ways with Chet Atkins; reportedly she was difficult to work with. Also, her record sales were relatively low and success on the charts eluded her. RCA canceled her contract and she was not successful in getting another record deal. Arthur felt that the conflict with Atkins was caused because he wanted her to record more assertive songs than she wanted to perform. Analysis of her works has shown that her most mainstream songs were her own compositions, but her lyrics were sexually suggestive and censored by both the
Grand Ole Opry and
Country and Western Jamboree, a popular fan magazine.
1957–1987 After RCA dropped her, she divorced her husband. In 1957 she recorded a few songs for the Coin label in
Los Angeles. In the late 1950s she played and sang wherever she could and for a while had a trio with her sisters Bettie Sue Farlow and Dorothy Dean Etheridge, but success eluded them. Afterward, she moved to
Salt Lake City and then, with the help of an old fan, she got a regular gig in
Idaho where she played until the mid 1960s. In her later career, Arthur recognized that her image, one which did not reflect femininity or domestic problems women encountered, was causing a disconnect with her fans and she became more subdued, altering her image to be more conventional. In the late 1970s she performed for Ernest Tubb's
Midnight Jamboree show, and she retired in 1978, living near her sister in
Pocatello, Idaho on a disability check. She died there on November 27, 1987, aged 58, due to natural causes. ==Legacy==