Country Music Hall of Famer and Grand Ole Opry member Tammy Wynette’s life and times are surrounded by many bittersweetly imperfect realities. Among them was her death on April 6, 1998, one month before the artist born Virginia Pugh’s May 5, 1942, date of birth. When you consider that, the gravity of a life lived performing songs that oftentimes made the Earth feel as though it was moving through her voice becomes palpable.
Yes, Wynette was married to George Jones, a fellow Country Music Hall of Famer and Grand Ole Opry member, from 1969 to 1975. However, via still legendary songs like “We’re Gonna Hold On,” “Golden Ring,” “Near You” and “Two Story House,” they achieved only four of her nearly two dozen global No. 1 hits.
About her work with the often taciturn Jones, Village Voice critic Robert Christgau once noted, “in art if not life, this was a rich, amazing marriage, goofy and tragic at the same time.”
“If rock and roll plunges forward like young love, then country music partakes of the passionate stability of a good marriage, and here’s one couple who know for damn sure that the wedding doesn’t end the story.”
Grand Ole Opry star Tammy Wynette walks on stage after her name was called as the winner of the Female Vocalist of the Year award during the third annual CMA Awards show at the Ryman Auditorium on Oct. 15, 1969.
It’s essential to study how her empowered resolve and desire led to her serving as an emotive song stylist and groundbreaker willing to explore bringing the economic and social power of a woman’s perspective to the male-dominated Nashville country music industry.
Moreover, her catalog assumes a different impact when viewed through the lens of contemplating her as a performer who arrived in Nashville in 1966 as a single mother employed as a cosmetologist who, through dogged determination, achieved unparalleled fame.
Consider, her biggest solo commercial smashes were 1968’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and “Stand by Your Man.”
That success keyed not just two Grammy victories in 1968 and 1970 but awards from the Academy of Country Music for 1970’s Top Female Vocalist, sweeping all of the female country categories at 1970’s Billboard Music Awards, plus being named Female Vocalist of the Year by the Country Music Association for three consecutive years from 1968-1970.
Country music star Tammy Wynette enthralls the 4th of July, 1978, crowd of 10,000 during the final day of the Nashville Music Festival in Columbia, Tenn.
When asked about pairing with Wynette for their surprise 1991 collaboration for “Justified And Ancient,” in 2005, British electronic music duo The KLF’s Bill Drummond offered the following reason for its occurrence. His reasoning doubles as an excellent summary of her legacy:
“It’s only the First Lady of Country Music whose legendarily authentic gravitas created a worldwide crossover hit (like “Justified And Ancient”).”
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Remembering Tammy Wynette, the First Lady of Country Music’s bittersweet life
