Country Pop Bites: Tammy Wynette –May 5

Did you know that on this day in Country Music History in 1942 Virginia Wynette Pugh, AKA Tammy Wynette, was born in Itawamba County, Mississippi?

It’s true! The Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, nicknamed the First Lady of Country Music, is noted for her pain-soaked vocal style, exemplified in "Stand By Your Man". Check out the video!

Here are 5 little known facts about Tammy Wynette.

• Her father, guitarist William Hollis Pugh, died when she was eight months old. When her mother, Mildred Faye, moved to Birmingham, Alabama to work for the military, Wynette was sent to live with her sharecropper grandparents.
• While in her late teens, Wynette began a short-lived marriage to Euple Byrd, with whom she had three children before divorcing in 1965. She supported her children by working in a beauty salon.
• In 1965, she landed a part-time spot on the television program The Country Boy Eddie Show, which led to appearances on The Porter Wagoner Show.
• Her most notable partner was fellow country singer George Jones, whom she married in 1968. Jones adopted Wynette’s three children and with his three from a previous marriage, they became a large extended family. The duet ended their stormy marriage in 1975, but continued to perform together.
• Throughout the 1990s, Wynette was hospitalized a number of times before she died from a blood clot on April 6, 1998, at the age of 55.