- Stand By Your Man · 1968
- Golden Ring · 1976
- Take Me To Your World/I Don't Want To Play House · 1967
- Honky Tonk Angels · 1993
- Anniversary: Twenty Years of Hits · 1976
- Me and the First Lady · 1972
- D-I-V-O-R-C-E · 1968
- 'Til I Can Make It on My Own · 1967
- Duets · 1993
- 16 Biggest Hits: Tammy Wynette · 1973
- Tears of Fire - The 25th Anniversary Collection · 1992
- George & Tammy & Tina · 1975
- Gospel Country · 2023
Essential Albums
- For those who like the idea of marriage, George Jones and Tammy Wynette’s 1976 album, Golden Ring, will sound like a bittersweet testament to the challenges of making it work. For those who don’t, it will sound like two crazy people who just can’t seem to get enough of ruining each others’ lives. Wherever you stand, the album is both a celebration and a cautionary tale: Yes, you can have the joy—but you’ll have to take the misery, too. Did Jones and Wynette have to have been married to make these songs sound as sad, funny and agonisingly genuine as they do? Maybe not. But they probably did have to be divorced—which, by the time of Golden Ring’s release, they were. So if the first-love romance of pop music always sounded like a fairy tale to you, here are stories of regret (“Tattletale Eyes”, “Did You Ever?”); rationalisation (“Even the Bad Times Are Good”, “Cryin’ Time”); and of being angry enough to threaten walking out—but of being just a little too comfortable to actually do it (“If You Don’t, Somebody Else Will”). And if you think they’re unhappy being together, just wait ’til you hear how unhappy they are apart (“I’ve Seen Better Days”). As for the title track, the hardest part of falling in love is realising people do it every day.
- Looking back on the title track for 1969’s Stand By Your Man, Tammy Wynette said she never figured that she’d spend more than 30 years defending a song that took 15 minutes to write. And you could easily see Wynette as a regressive figure in the political advancement of her sex—as producer and co-writer Billy Sherill (a man) later remembered, Epic Records marketed the song as “Tammy Wynette’s Answer to Women’s Lib” (which is what the culture called feminism before they took it seriously). But to anyone who gave the four-times-divorced Wynette the credit she deserved as an artist and observer of the state of marriage in America, Stand By Your Man isn’t about what women should do, but what, for better and worse, they did. Long before there was such a thing as goths or melancholy indie kids, Wynette found not only comfort in her suffering, but a nobility; shouldering her wifely burdens from inside a pop-country cocoon of pedal steel and string sections—weathered, but quietly proud. The title track is a foregone conclusion, and “My Arms Stay Open Late” an under-represented classic. As for “I’m Only a Woman”, well, yes, only—and the rest of the songs on the album are there to tell you what a complicated thing a woman is to be.
Music Videos
- 2007
- 2004
Artist Playlists
- Timeless classics from the First Lady of Country Music.
- Lesser-heard country gems and duets with pop royalty.
About Tammy Wynette
Hailed as the First Lady of Country Music, Tammy Wynette was a singer-songwriter whose success in the ’60s and ’70s helped forge a path for generations of other women in the genre. ∙ Wynette’s 1967 duet with country singer David Houston, “My Elusive Dreams”—written by her longtime songwriting collaborator, Billy Sherrill—was the first of her 20 No. 1 hits. ∙ In 1967, she had her first solo chart-topper, “I Don’t Wanna Play House,” which was also her first Grammy winner (she was nominated for Recording Academy honors 16 times). ∙ Her 1968 hit “Stand By Your Man,” though controversial at the time, has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and included in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. ∙ Following the success of such songs as “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” in 1968 she received the first of three Female Vocalist of the Year honors from the Country Music Association Awards. ∙ Wynette and husband George Jones were one of country’s most iconic duos, dominating the radio even after their divorce with such Grammy-nominated tracks as 1976’s “Golden Ring.” ∙ British electronic outfit The KLF tapped her to sing on their 1991 smash, “Justified & Ancient (Stand by the Jams),” which topped the charts in 18 countries. ∙ Country superstars Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn partnered with Wynette on 1993’s Gold-certified Honky Tonk Angels. ∙ An inspiration to such artists as Emmylou Harris and Reba McEntire, she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and was named one of VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll.
- HOMETOWN
- Tremont, MS, United States
- BORN
- 5 May 1942
- GENRE
- Country