On this date (April 6th) twenty years ago in 1998 the we said "goodbye" to the “First Lady of Country Music,” the legendary Tammy Wynette. Hard to believe, but she was only 55 years old.

Here is an excerpt from a beautiful obituary that was written and shared on CMT.com:

“Stand By Your Man” turned out to be the career song for Wynette, thus making her name a household word. When Sherrill and Wynette wrote the song, the women’s movement was just beginning to take hold. Although Tammy’s hard-core country fans loved the number, women’s groups from coast-to-coast took exception with the song’s conservative lyrics. Recalls Wynette in a 1977 interview with Joan Dew, “It’s funny that song caused so much commotion from feminist groups when you consider we wrote it in about twenty minutes. But they took it the wrong way. I didn’t sing the song to say, ‘You women stay home and stay pregnant, and don’t do anything to help yourselves. Be there waiting when he comes home, because a woman needs a man at any cost.’ No, that’s not what I was saying at all. I guess I’ve proven that I don’t believe in staying with a man you no longer love. All I was saying in the song was ‘Be understanding. Be supportive. There’ll be good times and there will be bad times, but if he’s worth being with at all, he’s worth seeing through the bad times.’”

And according to her Wikipedia page, During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wynette charted 20 number-one songs. Along with Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, she is credited with having defined the role of women in country music during the 1970s.

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