Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen »

Jimmy McDonough's biography of Neil Young, Shakey, was critically acclaimed The New York Times bestseller. He has also written biographies of Russ Meyer and Andy Milligan, and has written for publications including The Village Voice and Variety.

The twentieth century had three great female singers who plumbed the darkest corners of their hearts and transformed private grief into public dramas. In opera, there was the unsurpassed Maria Callas. In jazz, the tormented Billie Holiday. And in country music, there was Tammy Wynette.

"Stand by Your Man," "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," "Take Me to Your World" are but a few highlights of Tammy Wynette's staggering musical legacy, all sung with a voice that became the touchstone for women's vulnerability, disillusionment, strength, and endurance.

In Tammy Wynette, bestselling biographer Jimmy McDonough tells the story of the small-town girl who grew up to be the woman behind the microphone, whose meteoric rise led to a decades-long career full of tragedy and triumph. Through a high-profile marriage and divorce, her dreadful battle with addiction and illness, and the struggle to compete in a rapidly evolving Nashville, Tammy Wynette turned a brave smile...

The Barnes & Noble Review

Destitute, but fizzing and sparking with high-voltage ambition, Virginia Wynette Pugh -- born in 1942, married at 17, mother of three (and eventually four) -- began her ascent to becoming the First Lady of Country in 1966 when she was signed for Epic Records in Nashville by Billy Sherrill.  He bought her a long blond wig, renamed her Tammy Wynette, and set her to sing "Apartment No. 9." Her powerful, pain-drenched voice and perfect sense of phrasing brought the song to the threshold of the charts. The Grammy Award winning, "I Don't Wanna Play House" came the year after and in 1967 she recorded the iconic "Stand by Your Man" -- just as her second husband (of five) was divorcing her for running off with George Jones. Her eventual marriage to that notorious hell-raiser and singing genius was the very stuff of country music. Volcanic and wretched, it inspired some of the couple's best songs, both solo and duo, earning her the additional moniker of "Domestic grief goddess."

McDonough bangs his way through Wynette's life and career with a yakky zeal that is more suited to a fanzine than a biography, unsparing though it is of the sad details of a drug-addicted, overwrought life. "She was made miserable," observed her bus driver, "other than that, she loved life." Wynette's last husband, George Richey, isolated her from her friends, caused her to disinherit her own children, caroused as she was dying, and buried her among strangers. "She doesn't even know anyone where she is," lamented George Jones.

Virginia's in the House 3

Nettiebelle 18

Euple 43

It's Country Boy Eddie Time 54

Girl Singer 70

Don't Burn the Beans 84

Deeter-minded 116

Beneath Still Waters 140

We Got Married in a Fever 154

Happy Never After 181

Tammy on the Run 212

Mr. Tammy Wynette 243

"Don't Ever Get Married" 284

In Her Room 322

Death Ain't No Big Deal 343

Acknowledgments 367

Discography 371

Source Notes 387

Index 417