

Why Tammy Wynette Matters
Author: Steacy Easton
Series: Why Music Matters
Narrator: April Doty
Unabridged: 5 hr 19 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Spotify Audiobooks
Published: 05/23/2023
Categories: Nonfiction, Music, Composers, Musicians, History & Criticism
Synopsis
Wynette created a persona of high femininity to match the themes she sang about—fawning devotion, redemption in heterosexual romance, the heartbreak of loneliness. Behind the scenes, her life was marked by persistent class anxieties; despite wealth and fame, she kept her beautician’s license. Easton argues that the struggle to meet expectations of southernness, womanhood, and southern womanhood, finds subtle expression in Wynette’s performance of “Apartment No. 9”—and it’s because of these vocal subtleties that it came to be called the saddest song ever written. Wynette similarly took on elements of camp and political critique in her artistry, demonstrating an underappreciated genius. Why Tammy Wynette Matters reveals a musician who doubled back on herself, her façade of earnestness cracked by a melodrama that weaponized femininity and upended feminist expectations, while scoring twenty number-one hits.