Miss Tammy Wynette
Each visit Tammy made to Nashville proved slightly more encouraging than the last, but no company was willing to sign her to a contract.
Finally, in 1967, she met Billy Sherrill, a shrewd music producer who immediately sensed her potential. Sherrill signed Tammy for Epic Records, changed her name from Virginia Wynette Pugh to Tammy Wynette, and set about providing her with top-rate material.
With Sherrill's coaching, Tammy quickly made her mark on the country music scene. Her first hit "Apartment Number Nine, made the charts, and her next one, "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad," was one of 1967's best-selling country tunes. She is remembered however, for two songs that practically became blue-collar anthems: "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," a lament about a broken marriage, and "Stand by Your Man." The latter number sold more than two million copies and became the biggest single by a
woman in the history of country music.
In addition to her solo career, Tammy teamed up with George Jones both professionally and personally. For more than five years Tammy and Jones were a favorite country duo, but their
marriage was a trial for both of them.
Tammy has been a favorite target of the national tabloids since she and Jones married in 1968. She has been divorced five times, her home was vandalized, she has been given shock treatments for depression, and she was even the target of a kidnapping attempt (discredited by some as having been "staged" for publicity). Tammy describes her voice as "average," and indeed it is the substance of her material, rather than the sound of it, that draws listeners.
Reflecting on her turbulent career, Tammy has said that performing has given her a "better life," but it has also been "more of an escape from the real world. Because I could go out on the road and leave my problems behind me, and sing and enjoy
what I was doing. Come home, and the problems were still there, but I'd had a little time to work on 'em."
She concluded that performing" is a great escape, because you're in another world."