Tammy Wynette is considered among the genre's most influential and successful artists.
131 Facts About Tammy Wynette
2.
Tammy Wynette was born and raised in Tremont, a small town in Itawamba County, Mississippi, by her mother, stepfather, and maternal grandparents.
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Tammy Wynette performed music through her teen years and married Euple Byrd at age 17.
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Tammy Wynette then divorced and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a country music career in 1965.
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Tammy Wynette soon met her second husband, Don Chapel, and eventually signed with Epic Records.
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Tammy Wynette continued to have singles regularly make the upper reaches of the country charts into the 1980s.
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Tammy Wynette had several more high-profile relationships before marrying her final husband, George Richey, in 1978.
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Tammy Wynette has received two Grammy Awards, three Country Music Association awards, and two Academy of Country Music Awards.
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Tammy Wynette was among country music's first female performers to have discs certify gold and platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
10.
Virginia Tammy Wynette Pugh was born in Itawamba County, Mississippi in 1942.
11.
Tammy Wynette later credited both Alabama and Mississippi as her home states.
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Tammy Wynette was the only child born to Mildred Faye Russell and William Hollis Pugh.
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Tammy Wynette's father was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and died when Wynette was only nine months old.
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Weeks before his death, Tammy Wynette's father brought her to the family piano and insisted she learn to play when she became old enough.
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Tammy Wynette was left in the care of her grandparents and picked cotton on their Mississippi farm.
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Tammy Wynette learned to play the musical instruments that her father left behind.
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Tammy Wynette later made the all-state basketball team in both 1958 and 1959.
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Tammy Wynette took piano lessons and learned to play by ear.
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Tammy Wynette was considered to be "popular" by high school friends.
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Tammy Wynette insisted on getting married to Cole and attempted to keep it from her mother by mail-ordering eight dollar rings to her high school.
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However, Tammy Wynette's mother discovered her daughter's idea and stopped the courtship.
22.
Tammy Wynette temporarily moved to Birmingham, Alabama, when she was 17, where her mother and Foy Lee were living at the time.
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Tammy Wynette soon moved back to her grandparents' farm after her mother found her difficult to control.
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Tammy Wynette ultimately left her first marriage and moved to Birmingham, Alabama.
25.
Tammy Wynette moved to Birmingham in 1964 and lived with her paternal grandparents, uncle, and cousins.
26.
Tammy Wynette discovered that her cosmetology license wouldn't transfer to Alabama, so she enrolled at a beauty college.
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Tammy Wynette's uncle worked for the WBRC television station in Birmingham and helped his niece secure an audition for the Country Boy Eddie country music television show.
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Tammy Wynette performed on the program from six to eight o'clock each morning before going to school, then went to work at the Midfield Beauty Salon.
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Tammy Wynette befriended the show's pianist, David Vest, who helped record demos.
30.
Tammy Wynette started visiting a local radio station called WYAM and met disc jockey Fred Lehner.
31.
Tammy Wynette accompanied Lehner on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, which inspired her to pursue a country music career.
32.
Tammy Wynette decided to make the move to Nashville in January 1966 with her three children and all their belongings in their car.
33.
Tammy Wynette met her future husband, musician Don Chapel, at the motel.
34.
Tammy Wynette went into Sherrill's office and pitched him several songs.
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On her first recording session, Tammy Wynette cut Bobby Austin's "Apartment No 9".
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Tammy Wynette was joined by second husband, Don Chapel, and a band called the Countrypolitans.
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Tammy Wynette toured for the first time internationally in late 1967 to Germany and the United Kingdom.
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Tammy Wynette did several package dates with Chapel, David Houston, and George Jones.
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Tammy Wynette won the 1969 Top Female Vocalist accolade from the Academy of Country Music and three back-to-back honors for Female Vocalist of the Year from the Country Music Association.
40.
Tammy Wynette was among country music's most commercially successful and popular artists.
41.
Jones and Tammy Wynette had been wanting to record together since they married.
42.
Jones often missed shows after drinking too much, which increased Tammy Wynette's growing frustration with their relationship.
43.
Previously a packaged act with Jones, Tammy Wynette created her own stage show for the first time.
44.
Tammy Wynette hired the Gatlin Brothers to be her road band.
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Tammy Wynette hired several women as part of her road crew.
46.
The song was co-written by Tammy Wynette and reflected her life following the divorce.
47.
Tammy Wynette developed health problems that led to a dependence on pain killers.
48.
In 1980, Tammy Wynette told Billy Sherrill that she was ready to work with a new record producer.
49.
Several years prior, Tammy Wynette married for the fifth time to George Richey.
50.
Tammy Wynette hired California-based Stan Moress to serve as her manager.
51.
In late 1986, Tammy Wynette entered the Betty Ford Center to treat her addiction to prescription drugs.
52.
In 1993, Tammy Wynette joined with Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton to record the studio album Honky Tonk Angels.
53.
In 1994, Tammy Wynette released a studio album of duets titled Without Walls.
54.
Tammy Wynette often missed concerts because she was too ill to perform.
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Tammy Wynette was visited by George Jones during her recovery, who encouraged her to record another album with him.
56.
In 1995, Tammy Wynette was dropped by her long-time label, Epic Records.
57.
In 1986, Tammy Wynette joined the cast of the CBS soap opera Capitol, playing the role of a hair stylist-turned-singer, Darlene Stankowski.
58.
Tammy Wynette later voiced a role for the animated television show King of the Hill.
59.
Tammy Wynette portrayed Hank Hill's mother between 1997 and 1998.
60.
Tammy Wynette's health declined even more in the final years of her life and she began to look more frail.
61.
Husband George Richey and Tammy Wynette were sleeping all day on adjacent living room couches when he discovered that evening that she was dead.
62.
Tammy Wynette's death was certified by her doctor, Wallis Marsh, who flew from Pennsylvania to make it official.
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Tammy Wynette stated in his original report that Wynette died from a blood clot in her lung.
64.
Surprised by the will, Tammy Wynette's daughters began to question their mother's death.
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Tammy Wynette discovered that a local company called Care Solutions Inc had been delivering prescription drugs to Wynette's home through 1998.
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In 1999, Tammy Wynette's body was exhumed and an autopsy was given.
67.
The medical examiner who performed the autopsy declared Tammy Wynette died from cardiac arrhythmia.
68.
The autopsy revealed that Tammy Wynette had several powerful drugs in her system at the time of her death including Versed and Phenergan.
69.
Tammy Wynette used syringes and was later fitted with a permanent catheter into her side that allowed drugs to directly enter her bloodstream.
70.
The catheter was used for Tammy Wynette to inject food because of her intestinal issues.
71.
Tammy Wynette's remains were re-interred in the Woodlawn Cross Mausoleum at Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee.
72.
Tammy Wynette married Euple Byrd when she was 17, one month before her high-school graduation.
73.
Tammy Wynette originally intended to marry his brother, DC, but the relationship ended when he remarried his first wife.
74.
Tammy Wynette was not yet of legal age so her mother would be required to sign the marriage paperwork, but she refused and instead forced her daughter to leave the family home; her grandfather signed the papers that legalized their marriage.
75.
However, her mother disapproved and Tammy Wynette secretly moved with her children to Birmingham, Alabama.
76.
In one of their final encounters, Tammy Wynette told Byrd her ambitions of becoming a country performer.
77.
Tammy Wynette met her second husband, Don Chapel, upon moving to Nashville in 1965.
78.
Tammy Wynette's growing affection for George Jones would lead to the couple's divorce in 1968.
79.
Tammy Wynette later claimed in her autobiography that Chapel had taken and traded nude photographs of her to other male colleagues.
80.
Tammy Wynette first met George Jones while on tour with him in the late sixties.
81.
Jones and Tammy Wynette then proceeded to confess their love for each other to Chapel.
82.
Jones and Tammy Wynette officially wed on February 16,1969, in Ringgold, Georgia.
83.
On one day, Jones could not find where Tammy Wynette had hid his keys.
84.
Tammy Wynette filed for divorce in 1973, but the couple ultimately reconciled.
85.
In one attempt to locate him, Tammy Wynette drove her children and two friends down to Florida but were unsuccessful in their search.
86.
Tammy Wynette was briefly involved with Rudy Gatlin, a brother of Larry Gatlin and then-member of her touring band.
87.
The couple spent time in Florida, where Tammy Wynette owned a home.
88.
Tammy Wynette was able to pull Reynolds out before he drowned.
89.
Tammy Wynette was later diagnosed with having low blood sugar.
90.
Tammy Wynette then met real estate developer Michael Tomlin through her friend Nan Crofton.
91.
On July 6,1978, Tammy Wynette married her fifth husband, George Richey.
92.
Tammy Wynette borrowed several thousand dollars from her uncle to afford the hospital bills.
93.
In October 1970, Tammy Wynette had her fourth daughter, Tamala Georgette Jones, her only child from her relationship with George Jones.
94.
Tammy Wynette has since recorded five albums and toured internationally as a country artist.
95.
On October 4,1978, Tammy Wynette went shopping at Green Hills Shopping Center in Nashville.
96.
Tammy Wynette was then released 80 miles away in Giles County, Tennessee, and claimed to have been suffering from neck injuries.
97.
Tammy Wynette sought help from a local resident who brought her a cold wet rag and called Wynette's family.
98.
Tammy Wynette then appeared in Columbia, South Carolina, to give a concert.
99.
One night while she was sleeping, Tammy Wynette woke to a fire.
100.
Tammy Wynette attempted to call the police, but her phone lines were cut.
101.
In 1970, Tammy Wynette underwent a hysterectomy following the birth of her fourth daughter.
102.
The pain was so severe that Tammy Wynette started taking pain killer medication to alleviate her symptoms.
103.
However, her adhesions continued and Tammy Wynette had a series of operations to stop them from forming.
104.
Tammy Wynette then was being prescribed more painkillers, which caused a drug addiction starting in the seventies.
105.
In turn, Tammy Wynette found other physicians in various locations around the United States who would unwittingly give her the same prescriptions.
106.
Some nights on the road, Tammy Wynette scheduled overnight stops of the tour bus at hospitals, where she could acquire yet more pain killers.
107.
Three weeks into the six-week treatment program, Tammy Wynette began having stomach pain following an afternoon meal.
108.
Tammy Wynette then had an eight-hour operation where she said 25 percent of her stomach was removed.
109.
Tammy Wynette was then put back on the same drugs to alleviate the pain, which reinstated her addiction to painkillers.
110.
Tammy Wynette was in critical condition because of the infection's severity.
111.
Tammy Wynette was marketed as a country artist throughout her career and considered the genre to be the roots of her musical style.
112.
Tammy Wynette's signature recording, "Stand by Your Man", was often considered to be about women remaining faithful to their husbands through difficult times.
113.
Tammy Wynette was a songwriter and wrote many of her most popular recordings.
114.
Tammy Wynette was known for delivering singing performances with an emotional vulnerability that has been described as a "teardrop" vocal style.
115.
Tammy Wynette did more than navigate the melody dutifully; her voice showed the emotional depth that was smothered elsewhere.
116.
Tammy Wynette's mother owned all of Jones's records and Wynette was fascinated by his phrasing.
117.
Tammy Wynette often sang his songs to pass the time while picking cotton on her family's farm during childhood.
118.
Tammy Wynette cited female country artists Patsy Cline and Skeeter Davis as early influences on her music.
119.
Tammy Wynette listened to early recordings of Billie Jo Spears after discovering her music once moving to Nashville.
120.
Tammy Wynette learned to harmonize in the recording studio by listening to Davis's "The End of the World".
121.
Tammy Wynette's music spoke for rural and working class women who previously lacked representation in the genre.
122.
Tammy Wynette's music helped eliminate some of the male bias at country radio by expanding women into the record-buying public.
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In total, Tammy Wynette had 39 singles reach the Billboard country chart while 20 topped the same chart.
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Tammy Wynette has been said to have sold roughly 30 million records worldwide.
125.
Tammy Wynette's impact led to her being referred to by critics and fans as "The First Lady of Country Music".
126.
Tammy Wynette commented that both her record production and modern storylines that defined her songs helped give her the title.
127.
Tammy Wynette received a number of honors during her lifetime and posthumously.
128.
In 1991, Music City News gave Tammy Wynette the Living Legend Award.
129.
Tammy Wynette performed for several American presidents during her lifetime.
130.
Posthumously, Asylum Records released a tribute album called Tammy Wynette Remembered in 1998.
131.
In 1999, Tammy Wynette was included on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock.