Tammy Wynette was born on May 5, 1942. Wynette was one of the most popular country singers of the late 1960s and 1970s, and one of the genre's most successful women ever.
Wynette was raised by her grandparents in rural Mississippi. Her father died when she was an infant, and her mother moved to Memphis to take a factory job. She was married for the first time (of five) shortly before her 18th birthday, and attended beauty college, where she learned to be a hairdresser. Wynette renewed her cosmetology license every year for the rest of her life, in case she ever found herself in need of a day job.
She had some success on local television in the early 1960s, but her husband was not supportive of her ambition to be a singer. Wynette left him shortly before their third daughter was born, then moved to Nashville as a single mother, hoping to start a recording career.
The record companies all turned her down, and when Wynette auditioned for producer Billy Sherrill, he wasn't very enthusiastic, either. But he had a song that he thought could be a hit, and needed someone to sing it, so he took a chance on Wynette. That song was "Apartment #9," and while it wasn't a smash, it did well enough to get Wynette a contract with Epic Records, where she stayed for her entire career.
And Wynette gave Epic no cause for disappointment. Between 1967 and 1979, she released 30 singles as a solo artist; sixteen of them reached #1 on the country charts, and only 2 failed to make the top ten. Among them were songs that are now country standards, including "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," "'Til I Can Make It On My Own," and Wynette's signature song, "Stand By Your Man," which crossed over to become a pop hit in 1968. The highlights of her career, including all of those #1 hits, can be found on The Essential Tammy Wynette.
In 1969, Wynette married singer George Jones, the third marriage for each. He'd been a country star in his own right for fifteen years at that point, and together, they were a popular duo. Their songs often reflected the turbulent state of their marriage. "We're Gonna Hold On" was about a couple determined to make a marriage work despite the hard times; "Golden Ring," recorded after their divorce in 1975, was about the journey of a wedding ring from pawnshop to unhappy marriage and back to the pawnshop. Those songs are included on The Very Best of George Jones & Tammy Wynette.
Fans enjoyed Wynette and Jones as a team so much that they didn't want the divorce to end the musical partnership. Wynette and Jones both had concerts interrupted by fans yelling "Where's George?" or "Where's Tammy?," and they continued to record together through 1980.
Wynette continued to be a successful solo artist throughout the 1980s, though not at quite the same superstar level she'd reached in the 1970s. She released her last solo album, Heart Over Mind, in 1990. Her last few records were collaborative. Honky Tonk Angels was a trio album with fellow country queens Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton; Without Walls featured duets with likely partners—country singers Wynonna and Joe Diffie—and unlikely ones—Smokey Robinson and Elton John; and she re-teamed with George Jones for the reunion album One in 1995.
Perhaps her most unlikely project came in 1991, when the British electronic band The KLF invited her to be the featured vocalist on their single "Justified and Ancient." It was a song with surreal lyrics about driving around in an ice cream truck bound for Mu Mu Land, but Wynette sang it with just as much intensity and conviction as she'd given to any of her country songs. And the odd combination worked. "Justified and Ancient" became Wynette's biggest pop hit ever, reaching #11 on the charts.
Wynette had an unexpected moment in the spotlight during the 1992 presidential campaign, when Hillary Clinton said in an interview that she was not "some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette." Wynette demanded an apology, saying "you have offended every person who has made it on their own with no one to take them to the White House." Clinton apologized, as did Bill Clinton, and fences were mended, with Wynette later appearing at a fundraising event for the Clinton campaign.
Wynette had suffered from a variety of health problems for most of her life, and had at least two dozen surgeries. She entered the Betty Ford Clinic in 1986 after becoming addicted to painkillers. Rarely did she allow those problems to stop her from recording and touring, though, and she gave her last public performance only a month before dying in her sleep on April 6, 1998.
Jimmy McDonough's biography is called Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen (e-audio | print). Much more of Wynette's music, solo and with Jones, is available for streaming or download at Freegal.