Tammy Wynette

Tammy Wynette (born May 5, 1942, Itawamba county, Mississippi, U.S.—died April 6, 1998, Nashville, Tennessee) was an American singer considered the “first lady of country music” from the late 1960s to the 1990s. She possessed a distinctive “teardrop-in-every-note” voice and was one of the first female country artists to record songs told from a woman’s perspective. Many of her songs have autobiographical themes, depicting the tumult of her relationships and other personal experiences. She is perhaps best known for her 1968 hit “Stand by Your Man,” arguably one of the most controversial songs of the late 20th century.

Early life

Wynette’s life personified the theme of a rags-to-riches country song. She was born Virginia Wynette Pugh in rural Mississippi. Her family called her by her middle name. Her father, William Hollice Pugh, a musician, died of a brain tumor when she was an infant, and her mother, Mildred Pugh (née Russell, later Lee) moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to work in an aircraft factory during World War II. The young Pugh was left to be raised by her grandparents on their cotton farm. She sang on a gospel radio show with two friends and entered talent contests in Mississippi and Alabama.

One month before her high school graduation in 1959, Pugh married Euple Byrd. She worked as a beautician, sang in nightclubs, and appeared on Porter Wagoner’s nationally syndicated country music television show. In 1966 she left her husband and moved with their three daughters to Nashville, where she signed a contract with Epic Records.

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Success and controversy with “Stand by Your Man”

Renamed Tammy Wynette by producer Billy Sherrill, she recorded her first hit in 1966, the single “Apartment #9,” which was followed by “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad” (1967), “I Don’t Wanna Play House” (1967)—for which she won the first of two Grammy Awards—and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” (1968). With Sherrill she wrote the anthem “Stand by Your Man,” which quickly jumped to the top of the country music charts and reached the top 20 of the pop chart. The song won her another Grammy, for best female country and western solo vocal performance, and she was named the Country Music Association’s female vocalist of the year in 1968, an honor she received three years in a row.

Yet “Stand by Your Man” drew criticism for what were considered anti-feminist themes. In her 1979 autobiography Wynette defended its lyrics and wrote:

Although I consider myself a lot more liberated than many of the “sisters” who criticized the song—especially when it comes to things like financial independence, being the family breadwinner, raising children alone, and running a business—I am emotionally dependent on men and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Sherrill also defended the song, saying its lyrics were “just another way of saying ‘I love you’—without reservations.” Other critics have praised Wynette’s strong vocal delivery, with Cary O’Dell of the U.S. Library of Congress calling it “one of the most passionate [performances] ever in country music, displaying a power that, while formidable, never trips over into the theatrical.”

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Partnership with George Jones

In 1967 Wynette married singer-songwriter Don Chapel, who was jealous of her success. After leaving Chapel a year later, she married country music star George Jones in 1969. Known as “Mr. and Mrs. Country Music,” they had one daughter and recorded many duet hits, including “We’re Gonna Hold On” (1973) and “Golden Ring” (1976). Despite their divorce in 1975, the two continued recording together, including the single “Two Story House” and the album Together Again (both 1980).

Later life and career

Wynette married and divorced Nashville businessman Michael Tomlin in 1976 and married songwriter and producer George Richey in 1978. Her autobiography, Stand by Your Man (written with Joan Dew), was published in 1979 and made into a TV movie in 1981.

However, her signature song became the center of controversy again in 1992 during the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton. In an interview with 60 Minutes about Clinton’s reported infidelities in his marriage, his wife, Hillary Clinton, stated, “You know, I’m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette.” In response, Wynette fired off an open letter to Hillary Clinton that said she had offended “every true country music fan and every person who has ‘made it on their own’ with no one to take them to [the] White House.” Clinton duly apologized.

Wynette’s later recordings include Honky Tonk Angels (1993), a collaboration with fellow country queens Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn that garnered the Grammy-nominated hit “Silver Threads and Golden Needles,” and her last studio album, One (1995), which reunited her with Jones.

Legacy

Although plagued by personal problems in the latter part of her life—she was abducted from a shopping mall and beaten, filed for bankruptcy, and was treated for prescription-drug addiction and a series of health problems that resulted in some 30 operations—Wynette was one of the most successful female vocalists in the history of country music. Her recordings had sales of more than $100 million, and she had 20 number-one hits throughout her career.

Wynette died from a blood clot at age 55 in April 1998. Shortly afterward she was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The next year “Stand by Your Man” received the Grammy Hall of Fame Award. In 2010 the Library of Congress added the song to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Wynette received the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024.