[Number 10 in the ‘Music Matters’ series from the University of Texas Press]
Living the dream but was the dream real? Author Steacy Easton begins to search out the transformative realm believed or not to be believed of country superstar Tammy Wynette.
What I found highly curious are the myriad tales of who Wynette was and how she came to be. As Easton notes many times, her history and the stories that surrounded her upbringing are both factual and perceived.
To wit, Easton takes care of her biographical details. Virginia Wynette Pugh was born in Itawamba County, Mississippi on May 5, 1942. Of historical importance, Easton breaks down the mythology and reality that Wynette clung to so hard: was she as dirt poor as she said? Picking cotton to survive and later, obtaining a cosmetology license that she kept (and renewed) for the rest of her life.
These events, so crucial to her persona as a woman who struggled early and then attained glorified status amongst her followers, are at odds with factual anecdotes. While it’s indisputable that she had a license, the tales of her picking cotton were slightly embellished. She did well enough in school and perhaps played the part better than most. She wanted her audience to know she could relate to those impoverished beginnings, but did she want women to know she could empathize with their troubles?
Easton makes the case that early on, Wynette was smart enough to know how women were her support system. From the clothing choices to her wigs (of which she had many), she appeared more serious than say, Dolly Parton, another country singer of her equal but whose sense of humor and down-to-earth persona was in contrast to Wynette’s femme power queen.
She did rely heavily on men in her life, starting with her first husband Euple Byrd, who she married at 17. With money tight and Byrd having no steady job, they shuttled around relatives’ homes while Wynette gave birth to three children.
But her natural ability to sing and connect pushed her to pursue an avenue that Byrd wanted nothing to do with. A move to Nashville coupled with her divorce from Byrd in 1965, were the defiant and defining points that would start her musical journey.
The city’s vibrant music community, filled with artists who knew how to play and could play the game would give Wynette her platform. As she connected with writer/producer Billy Sherrill and eventual second husband musician Don Chapel, her career was supported and run by men. It was the norm and when Wynette hit the charts, it was inevitable that this gender sharing would have a fractious relationship.
While married to Chapel, they undertook tours as he encouraged a recording career. She pitched songs and connected with Sherrill, thus beginning a partnership that would be the recipe for star status.
And while there are notations to her first country singles, the laser focus is on ‘Stand By Your Man,’ a contradiction in the guise of support, but tethered to criticism from the women’s liberation movement, dated 1968.
“I spent 15 minutes writing ‘Stand By Your Man',’ and a lifetime defending it.”
There was a deliberate campaign to raise the hackles of Betty Friedman & Co., courtesy of Wynette’s record label. Wynette didn’t anticipate any social backlash, letting the song speak for itself (with her clear-as-a-bell vocals, of course). Her lyrical support of the monogamy lifestyle (and not forgetting that Sherrill contributed as well), and willingness to forgive and embrace a man’s idiosyncratic nature gave her audience value: as Easton notes it “filled a need.”
Of course, the obvious hardly has to be spelled out: would this song be acceptable in today’s environment? It’s worth mentioning that although Wynette was heard politically, her taking up the cause for George Wallace (before his mea culpa on segregation) had Wynette aligned with a culture she was comfortable wearing. While Loretta Lynn and Parton shaded their music with humor and even over-the-top melodrama, Wynette’s voice was at odds with that projection. And possibly hurt her as the years went on.
The hurt was real. From the physical - arduous touring, anxiety, addiction to pills - to the matrimonial (the five marriages, mixed with physical and emotional abuse, tied with a 3-week stay in a behavioral hospital) all in the circus-like atmosphere associated with the paradox called country music.
Easton has by no means constructed a chronological timeline of Wynette’s life. It doesn’t fit neatly into a box and it shouldn’t. Wynette’s scategorized lifestyle encompasses all of the above and more. Her private demons became more public with the alleged kidnapping she endured in 1978. But even then, the scrutiny was micro-thin for factual data. At its most heartbreaking, this incident points to the very center of whether Wynette was living a lie for others - or was her truth-telling so enveloped in melodrama that it was all pushed to the side?
Her third marriage to country artist George Jones is in of itself, a blow-up of the kind of enormous pressure-cooker life she inhabited, even when there was much more being held back from the spotlight. Yet, the behind the scenes chaos that materialized in song was the duo’s goldmine.
And due to their chemistry, Wynette and Jones were one of the few power couples in country music. As they blended harmoniously in songs such as ‘(We’re Not) The Jet Set,’ the push for Southern identification was strong within their audience. The rancor and rawness was known to exist, but they knew just how and when to temper the blows to find their audience and speak their language.
The duo’s tempestuous relationship survived past a divorce, another quick marriage for Wynette (later annulled) and then her last marriage to George Richey, were still at worst - as Easton notes - the only way Wynette could interact as a wife (or the perption thereof). Richey had had a professional relationship that blossomed into romance. Yet as the years went on, it seemed he took control. Of everything.
Wynette’s peculiar mix of femme power and personal mixed media tragedies played out in the final years of her life. Easton writes eloquently about her love relationship with Burt Reynolds, her surprise acceptance to record with the KLF and the overall arch of her Southern heritage that played havoc with her identity.
Her death in 1998 is also wound into that chaotic spiral. Was George Richey responsible for feeding her pain? Who was she - really - when she was publicly eulogized at her memorial service by fellow artists Parton and Waylon Jennings?
Wynette was enrobed in star status, with hints of sadness and strife. Her poverty, her wealth, her talent, her heartbreak. It became her. But it also undid her.
Another one to add to my TBR stack! (: