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"Country music quietly lost its &amp;quot;first lady&amp;quot; on Monday, April 6 when\nfifty-five-year-old legend Tammy Wynette passed away in her sleep.\nWynette&amp;apos;s longtime physician Dr. Wallis Marsh, said the cause of\ndeath was a blood clot to the lungs.\nWynette, who had a long history of health problems, including\nchronic abdominal difficulties which led to the removal of part of\nher stomach in 1986 and an infection that placed her on a\nrespirator in 1993, always managed to return to work with renewed\nvigor. Her last release was 1995&amp;apos;s One, a collaboration\nwith her famous duet partner and one-time husband George Jones. She\nwas scheduled to perform alongside Melissa Etheridge and Trisha\nYearwood for a live performance on TNN May 8.\nWynette, who had sold more than thirty million records over the\ncourse of her storied career, was born Virginia Wynette Pugh in\nItawamba County (near Tupelo), Mississippi on May 5, 1942. She\nnurtured dreams of performing and writing music from a very young\nage, and secured a deal with Epic in 1966. She came out of the gate\nwith a barrage of successful singles, beginning with Johnny\nPaycheck&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Apartment #9&amp;quot; in 1967 and peaking with her 1969\nnumber-one hit, &amp;quot;Stand By Your Man.&amp;quot; Wynette co-wrote the latter\nwith her long-time producer, Billy Sherrill. In 1969, Wynette\njoined the Grand Ole Opry. That same year saw the release of her\nGreatest Hits, Volume 1, which became the first album by a\nfemale country singer to be certified gold by the Recording\nIndustry Association of America.\nAlthough her winning streak continued into the &amp;apos;70s, her\ngreatest fame in that decade would come from her chart-topping\nduets with George Jones. Their songs together, including the\nnumber-one country hits &amp;quot;Near You&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Golden Ring,&amp;quot; are among the\nmost famous duets in popular music. The couple were married in\n1970, but the tumultuous relationship ended in divorce in 1975;\nnevertheless, they would continue to work together sporadically.\nThe pair performed at country music&amp;apos;s Fan Fair 1995 in Nashville\nand did a series of thirty concerts in the U.S., the UK, Ireland\nand Switzerland.\nWynette continued to record and perform throughout the Eighties\nand Nineties, complimenting her &amp;quot;living legend&amp;quot; status by staying\non top of things with collaborations with the likes of Dolly\nParton, Loretta Lynn, Randy Travis and, bizarrely, the English rave\noutfit KLF. Her single with KLF, &amp;quot;Justified and Ancient,&amp;quot; struck\ninternational gold, going to number one in eighteen countries in\n1992. The same year saw the release of Tears of Fire, a\nthree-CD/cassette box set commemorating Wynette&amp;apos;s twenty-five years\nwith Epic Records. In 1994, Wynette collaborated with the likes of\nWynonna Judd, Lyle Lovett, Elton John and Sting for her album\nWithout Walls.\n\nDuring the 1992 Presidential campaign, Wynette found herself in\nthe thick of things through a widely publicized fracas with Hillary\nRodham Clinton. Clinton&amp;apos;s remark to an interviewer that she was not\nidly sticking by her husband &amp;quot;like some little woman standing by my\nman like Tammy Wynette,&amp;quot; provoked Wynette to demand an apology and\ndecry the statement as an insult to &amp;quot;every true country fan&amp;quot; and\nevery person who had &amp;quot;made it on their own with no one to take them\nto a White House.&amp;quot; Clinton apologized, and Wynette put aside her\nbygones to perform at a Clinton fund-raiser.\nIn a statement Jones remarked: &amp;quot;I am just very glad that we were\nable to work together and tour together again. It was very\nimportant for us to close the chapter on everything that we had\nbeen through. I know Tammy felt the same way. Life is too short. In\nthe end, we were very close friends, and now I have lost that\nfriend. And I couldn&amp;apos;t be sadder.&amp;quot;\nWynette is survived by her fifth husband, producer/songwriter\nGeorge Richey, five daughters, a son and seven grandchildren."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/country-legend-tammy-wynette-dies-in-sleep-19980407>