Tammy Wynette was born Virginia Wynette Pugh near Tremont, Mississippi, the only child of William Hollis Pugh (died February 13, 1943) and Mildred Faye Russell (1922–1991). She was always called Wynette (pronounced Wee-net), or Nettie, instead of Virginia.

Her father was a farmer and local musician. He died of a brain tumor when Wynette was nine months of age. Her mother worked in an office, as a substitute school teacher, as well as on the family farm. After the death of Hollis Pugh, she left Wynette in the care of her parents, Thomas Chester and Flora A. Russell, and moved to Memphis to work in a World War II defense plant. In 1946, she married Foy Lee, a farmer from Mississippi.

Wynette was raised on the Itawamba County farm of her maternal grandparents where she was born. The place was partly on the border with Alabama. She has often claimed that the state line ran right through their property. As a youngster, she worked in the fields picking cotton alongside the hired crews to get in the crop. She grew up with her aunt, Carolyn Russell, who was only five years older than she was. Wynette sang gospel tunes with her grandmother, learned to play the piano and the

ammy Wynette's 1969 Greatest Hits collection was the first album by a female country artist to sell over one million copies.
Enlarge
Tammy Wynette's 1969 Greatest Hits collection was the first album by a female country artist to sell over one million copies.

She attended Tremont High School, where she was an all-star basketball player. A month before graduation, she married her first husband. He was a construction worker and they moved several times. Her early jobs included working as a waitress, a receptionist, a barmaid, and in a shoe factory. In 1963, she attended beauty school in Tupelo, Mississippi, and became a hairdresser; she would renew her cosmetology license every year for the rest of her life, just in case she should have to go back to a daily job. Her first husband, whom she left before the birth of their third daughter, was not supportive of her ambition to become a country singer, and, is said by Wynette to have told her, "Dream on, Baby."

Her baby developed spinal meningitis and Wynette tried to make extra money by performing at night. In 1965, Wynette sang on the Country Boy Eddie Show on WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Alabama, which led to some appearances with Porter Wagoner. In 1966, she moved with her three girls from Birmingham to Nashville, Tennessee, where she pounded the pavement to get a recording contract. After being turned down by repeadedly by every other record company she'd met with, she auditioned for producer Billy Sherrill, who signed her to Epic Records.

Once signed to Epic, Sherrill suggested she consider changing her name to something that might make more of impression with the public. According to her 1979 memoir, "Stand by Your Man", during their meeting, Wynette was wearing her long, blonde hair in a ponytail, and Sherill noted that she put him in mind of Debbie Reynolds in the film "Tammy and the Bachelor", and suggested "Tammy" as a possible name; thus she became Tammy Wynette.

Her first single, "Apartment #9" (written by Johnny Paycheck), was released in late 1966, and reached the top forty on the U.S. country charts. In 1967 she had hits with "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad", "My Elusive Dreams" (a duet with David Houston), and "I Don't Want to Play House", all of which reached the country top

appearances with Porter Wagoner. In 1966, she moved with her three girls from Birmingham to Nashville, Tennessee, where she pounded the pavement to get a recording contract. After being turned down by repeadedly by every other record company she'd met with, she auditioned for producer Billy Sherrill, who signed her to Epic Records.

Once signed to Epic, Sherrill suggested she consider changing her name to something that might make more of impression with the public. According to her 1979 memoir, "Stand by Your Man", during their meeting, Wynette was wearing her long, blonde hair in a ponytail, and Sherill noted that she put him in mind of Debbie Reynolds in the film "Tammy and the Bachelor", and suggested "Tammy" as a possible name; thus she became Tammy Wynette.

Her first single, "Apartment #9" (written by Johnny Paycheck), was released in late 1966, and reached the top forty on the U.S. country charts. In 1967 she had hits with "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad", "My Elusive Dreams" (a duet with David Houston), and "I Don't Want to Play House", all of which reached the country top ten.

Wynette had three number one hits in 1968: "Take Me to Your World", "D-I-V-O-R-C-E", and her best known song, "Stand by Your Man" (which she said she wrote in fifteen minutes). In 1969, she had two additional number one hits: "Singing My Song" and "The Ways to Love a Man". That same year, Wynette earned a Gold record (awarded for albums selling in excess of one million copies) for Tammy Wynette's Greatest Hits. She was the first female country artist to do so.

Director Bob Rafelson used a number of her songs in the soundtrack of his 1970 film Five Easy Pieces. Her chart success continued into the 1970s with such hits as "Good Lovin' (Makes it Right)" (1971), "He Loves Me All the Way" (1971), "Bedtime Story" (1972), "Kids Say the Darndest Things" (1973), "Woman to Woman" (1974), "You and Me" (1976), "'Til I can Make it on My Own" (1976), and "Womanhood" (1978).

She married her second husband shortly after her first divorce became final. While still married to him, however, she began a relationship with George Jones, a legendary country performer who was known to have a problem with alcoholism. (They first became involved somewhere around 1968.) Eventually Wynette parted with her second husband and married Jones in Ringgold, Georgia, with whom she had a daughter, Georgette (born in 1970.) It was a difficult marriage, however, due largely to Jones' drinking, and they were divorced in 1975; During their years together, they recorded a number of duet albums, starting in 1971, the first being the Top-10 hit "Take Me" (...to your darkest room, bolt every window and lock every door). They would continue to record together, even after their divorce, through the mid 1990s.

Aside from her music, Wynette's private life was as tumultuous as many of her songs. Over the course of her life, she had had five husbands: Euple Byrd (married 1959–divorced 1966); Don Chapel (married 1967–divorced 1968); George Jones (married 1969–divorced 1975); Michael Tomlin (married 1976–annulled 1976); and George Richey (married 1978–her death 1998).

She and Byrd had three children, Gwendolyn Lee ("Gwen") Byrd (born 1961), Jacquelyn Faye ("Jackie") Byrd (born 1962) and Tina Denise Byrd (born 1965), and