Tammy Wynette

While Tammy Wynette continued to pile up sales in the decades following the late '60s, her groundbreaking work was accomplished during that Nashville heyday -- the most passionate of all women country singers, she established herself as a riveting musical force, and patented her problematic persona as the antifeminist.

In hindsight, the perception of her as the C&W equivalent of Phyllis Schlafly, however, seems condescending and facile -- while it's true that she parlayed more than her share of long-suffering-wife apologias, not only do such songs as "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad," "The Only Time I'm Really Me," and "I Stayed Long Enough" counter her perceived submissiveness, but the dismissal of Wynette specifically reads like the more general loathing of white Southern life that afflicted many critics of the time. Basically, Wynette, a former beautician, embodied the sensibility of a certain culture; Bobbie Ann Mason and Andre Dubus would later write stories about the kind of character she represented -- Wynette, however, sang directly from inside the scene, and she gave it authentic, soulful expression.

While her first Epic single, "Apartment #9," didn't fare well (Keith Richards later covered it with the New Barbarians), the title track of Stand by Your Man made Tammy a star -- and provoked the early trashing of her as slavish wifey. In actuality the song was both tougher and more compassionate than its opponents averred; it also set the pattern for the very affecting approach Wynette would deploy on many of her ballads -- she begins singing with a dramatic hesitancy and then builds to a startling intensity. Produced by Billy Sherrill (and cowritten by Wynette and Sherrill in about 20 minutes), the single has a melodramatic force, and while the album's uptempo numbers were capable, it's the songs of agony that remain riveting. Understandably, Wynette concentrated on heartache for the rest of her career, with either formulaic results or impressive ones. In the '80s, Wynette's sound, courtesy of producer Chips Moman, had progressed past the gooey arrangements Sherrill provided, but the results were iffy -- she no longer came across as quaint, but her records occasionally suffered from glossiness. Her first greatest-hits album remains her strongest, by far; Anniversary is a fair career overview; and Tears of Fire gives us the most of the best. (PAUL EVANS)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide