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Quick Facts
- NAME: Tammy Wynette
- OCCUPATION: Songwriter, Guitarist, Singer
- BIRTH DATE: May 05, 1942
- DEATH DATE: April 06, 1998
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Itawamba County, Mississippi
- PLACE OF DEATH: Nashville, Tennessee
- Originally: Virginia Wynette Pugh
Best Known For
Tammy Wynette was a Grammy Award-winning country music singer who recorded the hit "Stand By Your Man." She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1998.
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Play NowTammy Wynette. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 01:58, May 18, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/tammy-wynette-9542123.
Tammy Wynette. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/tammy-wynette-9542123 [Accessed 18 May 2013].
"Tammy Wynette." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 18 2013, 01:58 http://www.biography.com/people/tammy-wynette-9542123.
"Tammy Wynette," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/tammy-wynette-9542123 [accessed May 18, 2013].
"Tammy Wynette," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/tammy-wynette-9542123 (accessed May 18, 2013).
Tammy Wynette [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 18] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/tammy-wynette-9542123.
Tammy Wynette, http://www.biography.com/people/tammy-wynette-9542123 (last visited May 18, 2013).
Tammy Wynette. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/tammy-wynette-9542123. Accessed May 18, 2013.
Synopsis
Tammy Wynette was born on May 5, 1942, in Itawamba County, Mississippi. By 1965, she was a divorced mother of three working at a beauty salon in Memphis. After appearing on The Porter Wagoner Show, she moved to Nashville,
and signed to Epic Records. Her best known song is "Stand By Your Man" (1968). Wynette was in a stormy marriage with country star George Jones from 1969-1975. The pair continued to record together long after the marriage ended. Wynette died in 1998.
Early Life
Country singer and songwriter Tammy Wynette was born in Virginia Wynette Pugh, on May 5, 1942, in Itawamba County, Mississippi. Wynette’s father, guitarist William Hollis Pugh, died when she was eight months old. When her mother, Mildred Faye, moved to Birmingham, Alabama to work for the military, Wynette was sent to live with her sharecropper grandparents. She grew up in a musical household and as a teenager performed on a local Mississippi gospel radio show. While in her late teens, Wynette began a short-lived marriage to Euple Byrd, with whom she had three children before divorcing in 1965.
Now a divorced mother of three, Wynette moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she supported her children by working in a beauty salon. In 1965, she landed a part-time spot on the television program The Country Boy Eddie Show, which led to appearances on The Porter Wagoner Show. The following year, she moved to Nashville, where she auditioned for several labels before producer Billy Sherrill signed her to Epic Records in 1967.
Commercial Success
Early in her career, Wynette released a number of successful singles, including “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” (both 1967), which earned her a Grammy Award. In 1968, she won the first of three consecutive Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year honors. Later that year, Wynette released the most famous recording of her career - "Stand By Your Man," which peaked at No.1 on the country charts, while reaching No. 19 on the pop charts. The blockbuster song sold over 2 million copies and became the bestselling single by a woman in the history of country music.
Country Collaborations
In addition to a prosperous solo career, Wynette was noted for her collaborations with other country artists. Her most notable partner was fellow country singer George Jones, whom she married in 1968. Jones adopted Wynette’s three children and (with his three from a previous marriage) they became a large extended family. The couple recorded 10 albums together and many of their singles became chart toppers, including “Take Me,” “We Go Together,” “We’re Gonna Hold On,” and “We Loved It Away.” However, their songs united them only on stage and the duet ended their stormy marriage in 1975; they continued to record sporadically over the next two decades.
In the 1970s and 1980s Wynette’s music career continued to flourish with the releases of The First Lady (1970), One of a Kind (1977), Sometimes When We Touch (1985) and Next To You (1989). In the early 1990s, Wynette collaborated with the British pop group KLF to create the international dance hit "Justified and Ancient" (1991), and with country superstars Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn for the album Honky Tonk Angels (1993). The 1995 album One marked Wynette’s last recording with ex-husband George Jones.
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Nashville Sound
View groupThe Nashville Sound developed in the late 1950s, when recording studios and artists replaced some of the traditional elements of honky-tonk music with more contemporary pop music sounds. Producer and musician Chet Atkins was one of the genre's inventors, and is credited with bringing country music to a much wider audience. With his smooth voice, Charley Pride is one of country music's few African-American stars—and the only one to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. Women were also crucial to the popularity of the Nashville sound, with stars like Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynne bringing women's perpectives, as well as glamour, to the genre.
Not only did the Nashville Sound influence the sound of country music, but it also helped to establish Nashville, Tennessee, as the country music capital of the world. Thousands of aspiring artists now flock to the city each year, hoping they might be the next big, musical discovery.
Nashville Sound 6 people in this group
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Country Legends
View groupWhen it comes to singing about struggle and emotion, there are few genres that match the intensity of country music. Country music was born from musicians that were brave enough to wear their hearts on their sleeves from happiness to heartache. Because of country icons like Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Jimmie Rodgers, this southern, soulful genre has grown to become loved by many. Browse through the legends that established country music as the popular genre that it is today.
Country Legends 18 people in this group
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