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Tammy Wynette, country music's first lady, dies at 55
April 7, 1998
Web posted at: 9:06 a.m. EDT (1306 GMT)In this story:
- Tributes
- Hairdresser to superstar
- Clash with Hillary Clinton
- 'I've had a wonderful life'
- Related stories and sites
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) -- Tammy Wynette, "the first lady of country music" who died Monday night at age 55, often lived a life similar to some of her more downbeat songs, including the controversial hit "Stand by Your Man."
Wynette recorded more than 50 albums and sold more than 30 million records, scoring 39 Top 10 hits from 1967 to 1988. Twenty topped the charts. She won three Grammy awards.
Married five times -- the first time at age 17 -- country music's "heroine of heartbreak" had a history of health problems, including depression, drug addiction and intestinal ailments.
She died while napping at her home in Nashville, Tennessee, said spokeswoman Evelyn Shriver. The cause of her death was believed to have been a blood clot.
Wynette had had several operations in the last 10 years to relieve recurring inflammation and infections of her bile duct. She was hospitalized for various ailments dozens of times, and admitted in the late 1970s to being dependent on painkilling drugs.
Despite "foolish, stupid mistakes ... I wouldn't change anything in my life," Wynette once said.
(104K/10 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)
She is survived by her husband, George Richey, five daughters, a son and seven grandchildren.
Tributes
Wynette scored many duet hits with George Jones, her husband from 1969 to 1975. They tended to be about either domestic bliss or strife, as did solo Wynette hits such as "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" and "My Man."
The recording contract Wynette signed with Epic Records launched her career She had a robust voice that could deliver entire songs seemingly on the verge of tears.
Country music fans polled for the annual Music City News awards voted Wynette a legend in 1991. She said it was premature.
"I don't consider myself a legend. I think it's kind of overused," Wynette said.
She was a three-time winner of the Country Music Association's female vocalist of the year award -- 1968 to 1970. Only Reba McEntire has won the honor more times, with four.
"I think her music was the thing that made her strong," McEntire told CNN on Tuesday. "She told her life story through her music," the singer said by telephone from Australia, where she is on tour.
"She's been a hero of mine..." -- Reba McEntire remembers Tammy Wynette 229K/21 sec. AIFF or WAV sound "She was as soulful a singer as I've ever heard," said producer Don Was, who has worked with Willie Nelson and Bonnie Raitt. "In her own way, she was every bit as soulful as someone like Aretha Franklin."
Added country singer Patty Loveless: "When Tammy opened her mouth, it was the soul of country music. ... Tammy, Dolly (Parton) and Loretta (Lynn) -- that was, and always will be, the heart of this music."
The album "Honky Tonk Angels," recorded in the fall of 1993, teamed Wynette with fellow country queens Parton and Lynn.
"Her story is really the story of country music," said Kyle Young of the Country Music Foundation. "From humble beginnings as a hairdresser, to superstardom.
"The strength of her music was she connected with a wide audience, because she really tapped into real situations in people's lives," he said.
Hairdresser to superstar
Virginia Wynette Pugh -- born May 5, 1942, on a cotton farm in Itawamba County, Mississippi -- picked cotton as a child. She later worked as a waitress, a doctor's receptionist, a barmaid and a shoe factory worker.
Wynette grew up on a farm in Mississippi, and moved to Nashville in 1966 with nothing more than a beautician's licence and a desire to sing In the mid-1960s, she was working as a beautician in Birmingham, Alabama, and making periodic 180-mile (290- kilometer) trips to Nashville in hopes of getting discovered as a singer.
She caught the eye of Grand Ole Opry star Porter Wagoner who asked her to sing at his road shows.
Billy Sherrill, who co-wrote "Stand By Your Man" with Wynette, signed her to Epic Records and produced her pivotal early hits. Other hits included "I Don't Wanna Play House," "Womanhood," "Take Me to Your World," "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad," and "The Ways to Love a Man."
The genius of "Stand By Your Man" was how Wynette's tearful voice undercut the lyrics, capturing the pain of a woman struggling to be true to a man who probably didn't deserve it.
Clash with Hillary Clinton
In 1992, her name and best-known song entered the presidential campaign when Hillary Rodham Clinton, in an appearance on CBS' '60 Minutes,' stressed that her support of her husband was more than routine and said: "I'm not sitting here like some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette."
Wynette replied angrily that Mrs. Clinton "offended every true country music fan and every person who has 'made it on their own' with no one to take them to a White House."
She added that if she and the Yale-educated Mrs. Clinton ever met, "I can assure you, in spite of your education, you will find me to be just as bright as yourself."
Mrs. Clinton said she didn't mean to hurt Wynette's feelings, and Wynette later performed at a Clinton fund-raiser.
Even though some women were angered by "Stand by Your Man," Wynette was proud of her accomplishments.
'I've had a wonderful life'
Throughout Wynette's 25-year career, stormy marriages and hospital stays threatened to overshadow one of the most successful singing stories in country music history.
CNN's Leon Harris remembers country music's first lady 2.3MB/41 sec./240x180
1.5MB/41 sec./160x120
QuickTime movieIn 1978, she was abducted at a Nashville shopping center, driven 80 miles (130 kilometers) in her luxury car, beaten and released by a masked assailant. No one was ever arrested, although Wynette later said the man apparently ended up in prison for another crime.
But she didn't emphasize the negative.
"I've had a wonderful life," she said in a 1991 interview. "I absolutely feel I've been blessed tremendously. I can't complain at all."
Wynette's personal life settled down that year when she married Richey.
In 1988, she filed for bankruptcy as a result of a sour investment in two Florida shopping centers.
More recently, Wynette was featured on "Justified and Ancient," a song by Scottish rap group "The KLF", which brought her back to the pop charts for the first time in more than 15 years.
Correspondent Mark Scheerer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Related sites:
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- Tammy Wynette from Country Time
- Great American Country - Tammy Wynette
- Celebsite: Tammy Wynette
- iMusic Country Showcase - Tammy Wynette
- Ultimate Band List: Artist Tammy Wynette
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