Why Tammy Wynette Matters

May 1, 2023

Easton's new volume in this publisher's "Music Matters" series explores the life of the often ridiculed and misunderstood country-music icon Tammy Wynette (1942-98). This biography examines her decades-long career, which included 20 number-one hits. Much has been reported about her five marriages, a decades-long addiction to painkillers, and the physical abusers in her life. Easton explores Wynette's rise to country-music stardom, the mocking of her biggest hit, "Stand by Your Man," and the work she did with the British electronic band the KLF later in her career. The latter introduced her to a new generation of fans. Easton argues that Wynette deserves more serious attention. Wynette's portrayal of a country girl who kept her beautician's license in case she ever needed it again, her never-substantiated kidnapping outside a Nashville mall, her relationship with George Jones, and her performances at fundraisers for segregationist George Wallace all add to the complexities of who she was as a person and musical artist. Like other entries in the series, Easton's book incorporates the author's relationship to Wynette's music and vocal performances in a critical biography that focuses on the artist's musical talents. VERDICT Fans of Wynette and country music will be drawn to this reappraisal.--Rebekah J. Buchanan

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May 22, 2023
Journalist Easton’s illuminating debut focuses on the eponymous “First Lady of Country Music,” who died in 1998, and how she “made her life into her work.” Among other aspects of her subject’s complicated history, Easton delves into Wynette’s “poor and rural” childhood in northeastern Mississippi, her work as a beautician in her 20s, her skyrocketing music career after signing a record deal with Epic Records in Nashville, her addiction to pain pills, and the string of abusive husbands she married and divorced. Though Wynette often centered her songs around “domestic heartbreak,” with “Stand By Your Man,” her 1975 superhit, she “took the melodrama of her previous work and pushed it into the national conversation,” Easton writes. The song sparked controversy, including when Hillary Clinton made derisive reference to it during her husband’s first presidential campaign, an incident that “cratered approval ratings” until Wynette appeared at a political rally to smooth things over. In Easton’s view, Wynette’s self-conscious persona-building is its own achievement, drawing on her working-class roots and notions of domesticity to present an image so “hermetic and seamless we don’t think about it as a kind of art.” Combined with in-depth discussions of such hits as “I Don’t Wanna Play House” and “Apartment No. 9,” Easton paints a riveting portrait of an oft-misunderstood star. Country music fans won’t be disappointed.