He grew up in Laurel, Mississippi, the home town of jazz guitarist, Mundell Lowe.
He attended the University of Southern Mississippi, graduating with a degree in Music Education.
[1] With encouragement from Lowe, Wells spent the years 1964–73 in New York as a working guitarist.
He moved to Nashville in 1974 and for seventeen years accompanied Tennessee Ernie Ford.
For twenty-three years, he was music director of Opryland USA, where he wrote over five thousand arrangements.