Tammy Wynette

Singer-Songwriter

• Born: May 5, 1942
• Birthplace: Near Tupelo, Mississippi
• Died: April 6, 1998
• Place of death: Nashville, Tennessee

American country singer, songwriter, and guitarist

Wynette developed a trademark vocal style: a catch in her voice that infused her songs with great emotion. Her tunes dealt with subjects her listeners identified with—love and loss, pain and pleasure, heartbreak and triumph, and breakup and reconciliation.

The Life

Tammy Wynette (wi-NEHT) was born Virginia Wynette Pugh on the Mississippi-Alabama border, the only child of William Hollice Pugh and Mildred Faye Russell Pugh. Her father, a farmer and part-time musician, died when Wynette was an infant. Wynette grew up picking cotton while learning to play a variety of instruments, and she listened constantly to country music.

A basketball star at Tremont High School, Wynette married Euple Byrd and dropped out her senior year. Byrd was often unemployed, so Wynette worked menial jobs to help support a growing family of three daughters. In the early 1960’s, Wynette left the shiftless Byrd. To make ends meet, she occasionally sang on television, and in 1966 she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where she eventually signed a contract with Epic Records. There she became Tammy, because of a resemblance to Debbie Reynolds in the film Tammy and the Bachelor (1957). She had a succession of chart-topping country hits between 1966 and the early 1980’s, and she became a major headliner.

Her personal life, however, was not as successful. She married and divorced a second husband before marrying country singing star George Jones, to whom she was wed for six tumultuous years. Following a brief fourth marriage, she wed for a fifth and final time to George Richey, remaining with him for the final two decades of her life. In 1978 she was kidnapped in a case that remains controversial. Plagued by medical problems for decades, Wynette underwent dozens of operations, and for many years she was addicted to painkillers. In failing health, she died of a blood clot at age fifty-five.

The Music

Autobiographical musical material was prominent during and after her six-year marriage to Jones, a period of great creativity and, because of Jones’s alcoholism, of tremendous personal volatility. The two stars, nicknamed the President and the First Lady of Country Music, had a number of hits together. Blessed with a powerful, tremulous voice despite her petite frame, Wynette throughout her career—particularly during the 1960’s and 1970’s—represented the epitome of the woman who perseveres in the face of adversity.

“Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad.”A 1967 release that rose to number three on country charts, this was Wynette’s second single and first big hit. Apparently aimed at her philandering second husband, Don Chapel, to whom Wynette was married from 1967 to 1968, the song scathingly denigrates her erstwhile partner’s sleazy taste in women.

“I Don’t Wanna Play House.”Cowritten by Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton, this song—which focuses on a mother eavesdropping on two kids playing house and overhearing her young daughter reflect upon the sorrow caused by her parents engaging in the adult version of the game—earned Wynette a Grammy Award in 1967 for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

“D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman wrote this 1968 hit, which continued Wynette’s theme of examining the effects of grown-ups’ problems on innocent children. In this case, the singer spells out certain words in an attempt to delay as long as possible the hurt that the dissolution of the family will cause her young son.

“Stand by Your Man.”Cowritten by Wynette and Sherrill, this 1968 single remained at the top of the country charts for three weeks, made the Top 20 on the pop charts the same year, and hit number one in England in 1975. The song most identified with Wynette, it is deemed a classic, and it won the singer a Grammy Award for Best Female Vocal Performance. It has been covered by dozens of artists, including the Dixie Chicks, Tina Turner, Elton John, Lyle Lovett, Lynn Anderson, and Wendy O. Williams, and it has been featured prominently in several films, notably The Crying Game (1992). When it was released, feminists harshly criticized the song for its suggestion that women should overlook men’s faults for the sake of keeping a marital union intact. Today, it is rated among country music’s one hundred greatest hits.

Musical Legacy

A consistent, popular performer, Wynette embodied the image of the strong woman who maintains dignity and femininity in the midst of tribulation. Before medical issues and the music industry (which withheld recording contracts from female vocalists over forty) slowed her momentum in the late 1980’s, Wynette scored twenty number-one singles. More than thirty million of her records sold around the world. Her lead vocals—singing esoteric lyrics about “Mu-Mu Land”—on the upbeat, dance-oriented pop tune “Justified and Ancient (Stand by the JAMS)” produced an unexpected international hit for the short-lived British band KLF, and the song rose to number one in eighteen countries.

For her work, Wynette received many honors, including two Grammy Awards (1967, 1969). She was the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year three times (1967, 1969, 1970), and in 1976 she won a similar British award. Late in life, she accepted many accolades: The Nashville Network’s Living Legend (1991), the American Music Award of Merit (1996), and induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame (1998) and into the Grammy Hall of Fame (1998). Posthumous recognition includes the Academy of Country Music’s Pioneer Award.

Principal Recordings

albums:My Elusive Dreams, 1967 (with David Houston); Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad, 1967; D-I-V-O-R-C-E, 1968; Stand by Your Man, 1968; Inspiration, 1969; The Ways to Love a Man, 1969; Christmas with Tammy, 1970; The First Lady, 1970; Tammy Wynette, 1970; Tammy’s Touch, 1970; The World of Tammy Wynette, 1970; It’s Just a Matter of Time, 1971; We Go Together, 1971 (with George Jones); We Sure Can Love Each Other, 1971; Bedtime Story, 1972; Me and the First Lady, 1972 (with Jones); My Man, 1972; ’Til I Get It Right, 1972; We Love to Sing About Jesus, 1972 (with Jones); The First Songs of the First Lady, 1973; Kids Say the Darndest Things, 1973; Let’s Build a World Together, 1973 (with Jones); Another Lonely Song, 1974; We’re Gonna Hold On, 1974 (with Jones); Woman to Woman, 1974; George and Tammy and Tina, 1975 (with Jones and Tina Denise Byrd); I Still Believe in Fairy Tales, 1975; Golden Ring, 1976 (with Jones); ’Til I Can Make It on My Own, 1976; You and Me, 1976; Let’s Get Together, 1977; One of a Kind, 1977; From the Bottom of My Heart, 1978; Womanhood, 1978; Just Tammy, 1979; Only Lonely Sometimes, 1980; Together Again, 1980 (with Jones); Encore: George Jones and Tammy Wynette, 1981 (with Jones); You Brought Me Back, 1981; Soft Touch, 1982; Even the Strong Get Lonely, 1983; Good Love and Heartbreak, 1983; Sometimes When We Touch, 1985; Higher Ground, 1987; Next to You, 1989; Heart over Mind, 1990; Honky Tonk Angels, 1993 (with Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton); Without Walls, 1994; One, 1995 (with Jones).

Bibliography

Daly, Jackie. Tammy Wynette: A Daughter Recalls Her Mother’s Tragic Life and Death. New York: Putnam, 2000. Wynette’s daughter provides an intimate portrait, with many photographs, of her famous mother.

Hagar, Andrew G. Women of Country: Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette and More. New York: Friedman/Fairfax, 1994. This is an overview of the careers of some of country’s top female vocalists. Includes photographs.

Jones, George, and Tom Carter. I Lived to Tell It All. New York: Dell, 1997. A companion piece to Wynette’s memoir, this is Jones’s autobiography.

Wynette, Tammy, and John Dew. Stand by Your Man: An Autobiography. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1979. Wynette’s candid recollection of her rise from poverty to stardom served as a basis for a 1981 made-for-television film of her life.