Total Page : 644
Publisher : Thorndike Press
Publication Date : 2010 07 07
>> The Real Thing When Country Music Was Truly Country
I grew up on a farm in North Carolina before eventually landing on Wall Street and for me this book approached a religious experience It s not just the story of Tammy Wynette it s the story of a time and a place that as McDonough says will never come again a time when we listened to WCKY in Cincinnati and WWVA in Wheeling West Virginia and country singers SPOKE to us in cheating songs drinking songs tales of love gone astray At first the country charts amounted to twenty nine guys and Kitty Wells Then Tammy Wynette came out of Tremont High School in Red Hook Alabama and started singing and said a friend it was like a great wind came through Nothing was ever the same
George Jones became Wynette s third and most significant husband When it comes to singing she said no one can touch him They have never been able to and they never will His drinking led to their divorce He finally straightened himself out meanwhile Wynette became addicted to painkillers She died in her 50s and in pain
There s a lot of great music described in this book and a lot of sadness But then isn t that what country music is all about
>> GREAT OBJECTIVE DISTURBING AND SAD
Those four words above describe the new book The author has done his research extensively and backs up his claims with his resources
Tammy Wynette was a very complicated woman looking for the idealistic life She did not find it in this life Up to her death she was constantly looking for that Elusive Dream that ideal love
The author is incredibly fair in his assessment of Wynette s character He pulls no punches She was not a perfect human being and he does not portray her as one She says she embellished the truth to make it more exciting
He has also conducted an extensive array of interviews with Don Chapel Tammy s second husband Tammy s close friend and pal growing up Linda Cayson Chapel s daughter Donna George and Nancy Jones Wynette Biographer Joan Dew Loretta Lynn Tammy s best girlfriend in the music business Jan Howard and many many others He also gave George Richey a chance to tell his story but he declined to be interviewed
This book also contains a great career retrospective and a great chapter on Billy Sherrill Tammy s long time producer
True this book does not portray George Richey in a good light but the author is fair as he gets quotes here from RIchey s defenders Unfortunately RIchey s defenders are in the minority When all is said and done the final analysis here is that Wynette was like Judy Garland an addictive personality who had to be under the control of a man well she got what she wanted there was no one more controlling than George Richey There are several testaments here to the fact that Tammy loved her daughters and her daughters loved her No their relationship wasn t ideal what is and after she married Richey he made sure he eliminated all of Wynette s friends from her life and kept her daughters from her at arm s length
I firmly believe after reading this account that George Richey was responsible for Wynette s decline She was already in bad shape he saw this saw his meal ticket and ultimately made sure that she could not function without drugs or without him Sad sad sad
Read this wonderful account and make up your mind for yourselves I thoroughly want to commend Jimmy McDonough the author for his wonderful research his remarkable telling of every side of the story and what was ultimately a labor of love for him
>> Somewhat disenchanted
Tammy Wynette Tragic Country Queen was a very intriguing book My main complaint is that it skips about too much The author jumps from past to present at unusual times I also feel that possibly her last husband George Richey may have been depicted unfairly In Wynette s last years of life she was a full blown prescription drug addict How difficult it must have been for Mr Richey to live with her in that condition One can hardly blame him for looking elsewhere at times and for feeling less than sympathetic toward her I feel the author should have tried to see past the image of Tammy Wynette and written a less subjective story than the one that he did write
Also the author seems to side with Wynette s daughters against Mr Richey Frankly I don t feel sorry for the daughters at all It wasn t up to their mother or their step father to provide for them throughout their adulthood They are all grown women now who can make their own choices Only one of the daughters went to college and obtained an education Why didn t the other three Did they feel that perhaps their mother would always provide for them For those of us who struggled financially to finish college or job training it is difficult to feel any sympathy for the spoiled daughters
The book was entertaining however very little objectivity was used in writing it
