Tammy Wynette
“Jimmy McDonough…achieves an intimacy that many biographers covet but few enjoy…With an emphatic sense of her place in country music—at the top of the heap, casting a shadow big enough to obscure today’s woefully synthetic assembly-line singers—he combines a love of her overlooked and minor classics with a compelling big-picture life story. His opinions are often corroborated by the colorfully authentic voices of those who knew her well and marveled at her moxie…There’s a lot of material about Nashville and its denizens here. The subject might wear thin without Mr. McDonough’s vivid descriptions…Mr. McDonough has connected these elements into a big, cohesive portrait.”
New York Times
Tammy Wynette was one of the great female singers of the twentieth century, an artist who could plumb the darkest corners of her heart and transform private grief into public drama. Bestselling biographer Jimmy McDonough tells the story of the small-town girl who grew up to be the woman behind the microphone and whose meteoric rise led to a decades-long career full of tragedy and triumph. Through a high-profile marriage and divorce, her dreadful battle with addiction and illness, and the struggle to compete in a rapidly evolving Nashville, Tammy Wynette turned a brave smile toward the world and churned out masterful hit songs full of vulnerability, disillusionment, strength, and endurance. This is an intimate portrait of a music icon, the Queen of Heartbreak, whose powerful voice evoked universal pain and longing even as it belied her own.
Praise