In 1963, Virginia Wynette Pugh attended beauty college in Tupelo, Mississippi where she learned to be a hairdresser. She renewed her cosmetology license every year for the rest of her life!

To earn extra money, Pugh began to sing of an evening while working as a hairdresser during the day. In 1966 she moved to Nashville, Tennessee to try and land a recording contract. There, she auditioned for the producer Billy Sherrill who signed her to Epic Records and changed her name to Tammy Wynette.

Her first single, “Apartment No. 9”, was released in December 1966, and just missed the top 40 on the Country charts. It was followed by “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad”, which became a big hit and launched a string of top-ten hits.

During 1968 and 1969, Wynette had hits including “D.I.V.O.R.C.E.” and “Stand by Your Man”, which was written in the Epic by Sherrill and Wynette and was released at a time when the women’s-rights movement was beginning to stir in the US. The message in the song was that a woman should stay with her man, despite his faults and shortcomings. It stirred up controversy and was criticized initially, and it became a lightning rod for feminists. Nevertheless, the song became very successful and Wynette won her second Grammy award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for it.

Wynette sang for five US Presidents including Reagan.

Although Wynette was born near Tremont, Mississippi she always called Red Bay, Alabama home. The town of Red Bay named a highway after its famed adopted daughter!