Tammy Wynette

Tammy Wynette was an American country music singer-songwriter and one of the genre's best-known artists and biggest-selling woman singers. She was sometimes called the "First Lady of Country Music", and her best-known song, Stand by Your Man, was one of the best-selling hit singles by a woman in the history of the country music genre. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wynette charted 23 No. 1 songs. Along with Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, Wynette defined the role of women in country music during the 1970s.

Wynette recorded and released a total of 42 studio albums, including a holiday album. She has released a total of 7 music videos. Since 1966, she has placed 79 singles on the United States Country singles chart, 20 of these singles reached #1 on the Billboard Country Chart.

Her first single, Apartment No. 9, was released in December 1966, and peaked at No. 44. It was followed by "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad," which became a big hit, peaking at number three. Other Top Ten hits include "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad", "My Elusive Dreams", a duet with David Houston, and "I Don't Wanna Play House" which won Wynette a Grammy award in 1967 for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.

During 1968 and 1969, Wynette had five number one hits with "Take Me to Your World," "D-I-V-O-R-C-E", "Stand by Your Man", "Singing My Song," and "The Ways to Love a Man". In 1969, Wynette won the Grammy award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for "Stand by Your Man". She earned a Gold record for Tammy's Greatest Hits which was certified in 1970 by the RIAA. The album would later be awarded Platinum record status in June 1989. In 1970, director Bob Rafelson used a number of her songs in the soundtrack of his 1970 film Five Easy Pieces.

During the early 1970s, her number one singles included "He Loves Me All the Way" "Run Woman, Run" and "The Wonders You Perform", "Good Lovin' (Makes it Right)", "Bedtime Story", "My Man (Understands)", "'Til I Get it Right", and "Kids Say the Darndest Things".

In 1976, she recorded "'Til I Can Make It on My Own" after her divorce from George Jones. The song reached No. 1 on the U.S. country singles charts and No. 84 on the pop singles charts. It became her first single in eight years to enter the pop charts. "You and Me" became her final No. 1 as a solo artist.

Wynette continued to reach the Top 10 until the end of the decade with "Let's Get Together (One Last Time), "One of a Kind", "Womanhood", "No One Else in this World" and "They Call It Makin' Love". She had a total of 21 number one hits on the U.S. country singles charts.

In the early 1980s, she continued to have top-20 hits including "Starting Over", "He Was There (When I Needed You)"), a cover of the Everly Brothers' hit "Crying in the Rain", "Another Chance", "You Still Get to Me in My Dreams" ) and "A Good Night's Love".

In 1987, Wynette released the album Higher Ground which featured a neotraditional country sound and featured contributions from Vince Gill, Ricky Van Shelton, Rodney Crowell, Ricky Skaggs, Emmylou Harris and The O'Kanes. Two of the singles released from the album, "Your Love" and "Talkin' to Myself Again", reached the top 20 on the U.S. country singles charts. A third single, "Beneath a Painted Sky", featuring duet vocals from Emmylou Harris, reached No. 25 in early 1988.

She recorded "Justified and Ancient (Stand by the JAMs)" with the British electronica group The KLF in late 1991, which became a No. 1 hit in eighteen countries and reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.

Her 1993 album Honky Tonk Angels album featured songs with Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. The album did well on the country charts and reached number 42 on the Billboard Pop Charts. In 1994, she released Without Walls, a collection of duets with a number of country, pop and rock and roll performers, including Wynonna Judd, Elton John, Lyle Lovett, Aaron Neville, Smokey Robinson, and Sting.

In 1995, she and George Jones recorded their first new duet album in fifteen years titled, One, which spawned a single of the same name. The single was the duo's first music video together. She recorded a cover version of The Beach Boys' "In My Room", a duet with Brian Wilson, for the group's 1996 comeback album Stars and Stripes Vol.1.