Tammy Wynette - Songs

ABOUT

Tammy Wynette (May 5, 1942 - April 6, 1998) was a country star with a great deal of crossover appeal who became famous beginning in the late 1960s. Known as the "First Lady of Country Music," she had a signature style that was at once elegant and emotive and was described by a French critic as an American Edith Piaf. Wynette is most famous for "Stand By Your Man" (1968), which she co-wrote with her producer, Billy Sherrill, that became one of country music's all-time top selling songs by a female artist.

Born Virginia Wynette Pugh in Itawamba County, Mississippi near Tremont, her father passed away before her first birthday and she spent much of her youth picking cotton on her grandparents' farm alongside other relatives. As a child, she sang in her church and taught herself the accordion, mandolin, bass fiddle, and a number of other instruments her father had left behind. During her early 20s while working as a beautician, she launched her professional music career singing on the "Country Boy Eddie" TV show on WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Alabama. By 1966, she had relocated to Nashville, Tennessee where she landed a contract with Epic Records and became known as Tammy Wynette.

Wynette debuted in late 1966 on the Country charts with her cover of the Bobby Austin hit, "Apartment #9," a lovelorn ballad co-written by Fern Foley, Fuzzy Owen, and Johnny Paycheck that later became among her best known songs. Her fame began to take off the following year with "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" (1967), a Top 5 hit, and "My Elusive Dreams" (1967, with David Houston), the first of a whopping 20 Country chart-toppers lasting through the late 1970s that also included the Grammy-winning "I Don't Wanna Play House" (1967), "Take Me To Your World" (1968), "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" (1968), and her signature song, "Stand By Your Man" (1968), which became her greatest hit and crossover success, reaching #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning her a second Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

Wynette's other #1 hits on the Country charts, many of which also crossed over to Pop/Rock, included such classics as "Singing My Song" (1969), "The Ways To Love A Man" (1969), "He Loves Me All The Way" (1970), "Run, Woman, Run" (1970), "Bedtime Story" (1972), "Kids Say The Darndest Things" (1973), and "'Til I Can Make It On My Own" (1976), as well as several duets with then-husband George Jones. After their divorce in 1975, they continued to record together over the years and their hit recordings lasted through the early 1980s, with a final hit in 1995 with "One." Wynette's original version of "Stand By Your Man" resurfaced in 1998 on the Country charts and was her final charting song.

Although beset with health problems since the 1970s, Tammy Wynette toured and recorded actively up to her passing in early 1998. She was inducted later that year into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in addition to two Grammys, her numerous other honors and accolades included three CMA awards, the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music (2001), and inclusion in VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll (1999, 2001). In 2002, Wynette was ranked at #2 by CMT in its list of 40 Greatest Women of Country Music, and in 2003, "Stand By Your Man" took the top spot in its list of the Top 100 Country Music Songs. This country standard was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and added by the Library of Congress to its National Recording Registry in 2010.

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SONGS

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Tammy Wynette

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