Why Tammy Wynette Matters

by Steacy Easton

How Tammy Wynette channeled the conflicts of her life into her music and performance.

With hits such as “Stand By Your Man” and “Golden Ring,” Tammy Wynette was an icon of American domesticity and femininity. But there were other sides to the first lady of country. Steacy Easton places the complications of Wynette’s music and her biography in sharp-edged relief, exploring how she made her sometimes-tumultuous life into her work, a transformation that was itself art. Wynette created a persona of high femininity to match the themes she sang about—fawning devotion, redemption in heterosexual romance, the heartbreak of loneliness. Behind the scenes, her life was marked by persistent class anxieties; despite wealth and fame, she kept her beautician’s license. Easton argues that the struggle to meet expectations of southernness, womanhood, and southern womanhood, finds subtle expression in Wynette’s performance of “Apartment #9”—and it’s because of these vocal subtleties that it came to be called the saddest song ever written. Wynette similarly took on elements of camp and political critique in her artistry, demonstrating an underappreciated genius. Why Tammy Wynette Matters reveals a musician who doubled back on herself, her façade of earnestness cracked by a melodrama that weaponized femininity and upended feminist expectations, while scoring twenty number-one hits.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, History

184 pages, Hardcover

Published May 9, 2023

Reviews

[Karyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tammy Wynette has been disrespected and dismissed since her heyday in the 1970s, and this book resurrects her talent and sense of drama that epitomized American music, notably women of country music who were restricted by their own cultural restraints. Nashville has always been a music capital known for keeping everyone down in their place.

All women of her era and for decades after were treated in similar fashion, especially in regards to their bad choices and addictions, unlike their male counterparts. In more contemporary times, compare opinions of Amy Winehouse to Heath Ledger by critics and the public. Misogyny has ruled for so long that nobody even noticed. Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone magazine fame finally met the consequences, about two months ago, of his misogynistic rule over popular music for over fifty years with his comment about Joni Mitchell not being “articulate enough.” Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Jann!

The past two decades have provided new biographies of talents like Janis Joplin and allowed them to be the full-bodied, transgressive artists with well earned respect.

[Amy Lively · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are looking for a quick and breezy biography, this isn’t it. I couldn’t help but compare this book to the work that Tyler Mahan Coe has done with his podcast and his book on Tammy and George Jones. This book is definitely less engaging. It also doesn’t add anything about Tammy’s biography that I didn’t already know, although I wasn’t reading this for that purpose. I really wanted to know why the author believes that Tammy Wynette matters — I know why I think she does, but I was interested in the opinion of someone has devoted more time and energy than I have to dissecting Tammy’s work.

The answer seems to be wrapped up in the pain of Tammy’s life. She was repeatedly mistreated by Nashville and by her questionable choices in husbands. The music borne out of pain attracts others who have experienced similar pain—which describes a lot of country music fans. I do wish the author had done less of what they complained that others had done, which was focus on Tammy separately from the men in her life.

[Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 rounded down to 4.

I stumbled across this book in an independent bookstore and the cover really drew me in. As a country music lover, I had to have it.

I knew very basic facts about Wynette, but I loved learning more while also hearing Easton's take on so many different aspects of Wynette's life and influence. I felt like Easton did a good job at being nonbiased which I think really helped their arguments.

The book was short but dense so it took me a little while to get through but it was definitely worth it!

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why Tammy Wynette Matters by Steacy Easton is an interesting assessment of Wynette that largely avoids the pitfalls of other biographies of the singer. I think the framing allowed by the Music Matters series is part of the reason, it keeps the focus on exactly what the title says.

Disclaimer: While I listen to some country music, I am far from being a country music fan, in at least some part due to the types of people I have encountered who are fans. No where near all, but well over half hold views, not just political, that I find abhorrent. Yes, I lived for a time in a couple of communities that were mostly country music fans, so this isn't my reacting to any stereotypes, this is me generalizing from experience. That said, a lot of the music is wonderful and Wynette has always been one artist I liked a lot.

I really enjoyed reading Easton's take on Wynette, the attempt to, not so much separate but, find the different threads of her personal life, her professional life, and how everything is woven into a sometimes chaotic but always powerful persona. While I saw one person who thought the conclusion chapter was too personal about the author's life, I found it to help tie everything together. They show how and why Wynette matters to them, which forms the foundation for why she matters on the whole. Problematic, sometimes disappointing, but matters nonetheless.

It is partly because of Easton's personal touch in the last chapter that I decided to share my disclaimer. They offer a hope for people to connect and try to understand each other even when there is extreme disagreement. I go that route in many areas and fail in some as well. Over the past decade I have had a hard time finding common ground with people who don't want common ground unless it means conceding every single inch to them. Easton suggests that maybe, just maybe, a little more effort might be fruitful.

Recommended for country music fans as well as music and popular culture scholars. I could picture myself, back when I was teaching, using a chapter or two in a WGS course.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

[Guy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just abysmal. A horrid word salad of nearly incomprehensible sentences apparently composed with AI, a thesaurus, and open copies of a couple of trashy, discredited previous "bios" of The First Lady of Country Music. Easton sounds like she looked up a couple of Wynette's albums after watching the recent George and Tammy miniseries and decided to use the lyrics from those recordings to analyze the singer's psyche. (And she didn't even choose particularly noteworthy albums!)
I've been a Tammy Wynette fan for decades. I was even one of her fan club representatives for several years. I'm such a fan, I would read almost anything about Tammy I could get my hands on. Even so, this was so awful I could only manage about a third of it (and it's not long).
It isn't just that the writing is choppy and stumbling and rambling and disjointed sentences. It's that the book is so mean-spirited, opportunistic, and necrophagic.

I looked up the author. She is queer, was raised Mormon, and has autism. That's a lot for one person to handle. But it's not an excuse for smearing Tammy Wynette.

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea Tammy Wynette was this complex as a person, or as an artist. The men in her life victimized her in so many ways and, despite writing what is perhaps the most iconic country song of all time, she couldn't really escape that victimization. She may or may not have staged her own kidnapping, she may or may not have gotten a gun pointed at her by George Jones, her last husband may or may not have called the National Enquirer to sell her death as a story BEFORE he called her daughters, and she may or may not have had legions of lesbian fans in Australia. She definitely loved her wigs, she definitely campaigned for a segregationist, and she definitely dismissed feminism while also taking advantage of its gains. But she had one hell of a twang...

[Andrea Rawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew nothing about Tammy Wynette going into this book except for “Stand By Your Man” and her songs with George Jones. This book was eye opening about her personal life (especially with how terrible all of her husbands were, including George).

While I did learn a lot, I had trouble staying engaged while reading. Some chapters flowed well, others felt disjointed and had half-hearted conclusions.

I did stop reading a few times and searched the songs mentioned in the book to get some more context.

[Ian Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an exceptional “case study” of Wynette. It’s well-written, and for all of the praise, none of Wynette’s flaws, warts, and deserved criticisms are glossed over. The analysis isn’t painfully academic (like too many books in the music criticism genre), and nor is it verbose. Tammy Wynette is such a complex figure, as is her music. This is highly recommended for her fans and lay people alike.

[Jonathan Bernstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly appreciated this book, which helped me learned so much about Wynette and forced me to think about her, and her music, and self-presentation (and self-presentation and performance more broadly, in country music) in all sorts of new ways, and also to discover (and rediscover) much of her music. Really recommend this surprising and engaging book!

[Jonathan Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important and very interesting critical reassessment of the life and work of Tammy Wynette. The author clearly immersed themself in the country music genre and has some impressive if restrained insights on what Wynette's personal life was probably like. Well worth a read.

[Maryann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book as an early reviewer copy from Library Thing. I have not read many memoirs but have loved country music all my life. Tammy was one of the greats. This book covers many of the behind the scene issues I was not aware of since I was only a child when they occurred. Since I usually read fiction, I did find the book a bit slow at times. That is the reason for the mediocre score. But I did enjoy learning more about this queen of country.

[Ruthann]

Only finished about half. Interesting but not engaging.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disjointed

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew a bit about Tammy Wynette and enjoyed her music and was keen to learn more, hence picking up this book.

I was surprised about some of the things I had taken as fact about her life as Easton provides an in depth analysis which contextualises and re-contextualised Tammy Wynette.

It was interesting to see Easton deconstruct Wynette and the persona she crafted and how that was blurred with her real life. It was also eye opening how Easton critiques other memoirs, biographies and texts that have told Wynettes story through the men in her life that are often credited.

Easton does not hold back on presenting Wynette as a flawed and troubled character while also looking at the impact she had on country music. It was beneficial as a reader, that Easton also presented some of the problematic aspects Wynette had such as doing a concert for racist Alabama governor George Wallace and benefitting from feminism while critiquing it. While not unusual for singers from this genere to have or support these views, we have artists like Dolly Parton who set the example of how someone can be successful in that industry while still upholding socially liberal views and doing projects for the greater good.
While well researched, I found some elements admittedly sceptical in that there were assumptions about what may and may not have happened and how she may or may not have felt. The bottom line is that many elements of Wynettes life have not been recorded or written about previously so we have to make some assumptions and take elements with a grain of salt, for example the beauticians licence she supposedly renewed every year.

Easton wants us to appreciate Wynettes contributions to country music and see her as a whole person and character and not just vignettes of what she presented to the world and how other people have reduced her. Easton also talks of how Tammy Wynette can be used as a vehicle for queerness and feminism using notions of drag and persona and versions of femininity.