Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman giving all your love to just one man.
Tammy Wynette
‘Stand By Your Man’ took 15 minutes at Epic Studios to record today in 1968.
It was the most successful record of Wynette’s career and is one of the most covered songs in the history of country music. The song has appeared in various films. (Easy Pieces, The Blues Brothers, The Crying Game, Sleepless in Seattle, Four Weddings and a Funeral and GoldenEye).
Known as the First Lady of Country Music, Tammy Wynette’s ‘Stand by Your Man’, was one of the best-selling hit singles by a woman in the history of country music. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wynette charted 23 #1 songs. Along with Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, they credit her with having defined the role of women in country music during the 1970s.
Born Virginia Wynette Pugh on May 5, 1942, on a cotton farm in Itawamba County, Mississippi, Tammy spent her youth picking cotton, working as a beautician, a waitress, and a shoe-factory employee before her rise to stardom.
No other female country singer conveyed the emotion of heartbreak like Tammy Wynette.
She endeared herself to millions by singing about topics of everyday life—divorce, loneliness, parenting, passion. Her tearful singing style was the voice of every heartbreak a woman has ever known. Perhaps it’s that Tammy herself lived through such tumultuous times that she could convey the emotion of such weighty topics. Like her career, Tammy’s personal life filled the papers. In 1968 she married her idol, George Jones, creating a union that captured the imaginations of country music fans like no other couple before them. For the next seven years, they lived, sang, wrote, recorded, and performed in a romantic, stormy, and much-publicized relationship that ultimately brought Tammy more headlines than happiness.
Jones’ drinking sprees were almost as legendary as his music, and it was this problem that eventually destroyed the marriage. They had one child, Tamala Georgette, born in 1970.
On July 6, 1978, she finally found lasting happiness when she married her longtime friend, George Richey. The well-known songwriter had co-written several of Tammy’s chart-toppers and produced hits for Tammy and many other artists.
Throughout the next two decades, Tammy suffered health problems and underwent several operations. Still, she rose to the top of the international charts once again when she teamed with British pop act KLF to create the dance hit “Justified and Ancient.” She continued her streak when she joined forces with Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn on their landmark album, Honky Tonk Angels.
