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Book Cover
E-book
Author Easton, Steacy, author.

Title Why Tammy Wynette matters Steacy Easton
Edition First edition
Published Austin : University of Texas Press, 2023

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Description 1 online resource
Series Music matters
Contents Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Introduction -- Domesticity -- High Femme Armor -- Soft Politics -- Pain -- Melodrama -- Sex -- Fame. -- Tradition -- Reprieve -- Camp -- Funeral -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography
Summary How Tammy Wynette channeled the conflicts of her life into her music and performance. With hits such as "Stand By Your Man" and "Golden Ring," Tammy Wynette was an icon of American domesticity and femininity. But there were other sides to the first lady of country. Steacy Easton places the complications of Wynette's music and her biography in sharp-edged relief, exploring how she made her sometimes-tumultuous life into her work, a transformation that was itself art. 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 #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
Analysis Country Music, Domesticity, Sexuality, Mid Century, American South, Fame, Celebrity, Performance Studies, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, melodrama, soft politics, Reba McEntire, pain, camp, high femme, gender
Subject Wynette, Tammy.
Wynette, Tammy -- Criticism and interpretation
SUBJECT Wynette, Tammy fast
Subject Country music -- History and criticism
Women country musicians -- United States -- Biography
Women singers -- United States -- Biography
Country musicians -- United States -- Biography
Singers -- United States -- Biography
MUSIC / General.
Country music
Country musicians
Singers
Women country musicians
Women singers
United States
Genre/Form Biographies
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781477327500
1477327509