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June 25-27
Why this weekend? Forty-three years ago Sunday, Tammy Wynette was in the studio recording her first chart-topping record.
About the record: Epic 5-10211, recorded June 27, 1967, at Columbia Studios in Nashville. Released the following month, it eventually reached No. 1 on Billboard‘s country chart. First LP appearance was on Take Me To Your World/I Don’t Wanna Play House, Epic BN-26353, released Jan. 5, 1968. It reached No. 3 on Billboard‘s country album chart.
Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill were quite a team. As a producer, he was the first person in Nashville to give the Alabama hairdresser a chance with her songs, and he helped her become a singer to be reckoned with. As a songwriter, he created several of her big hits, some with her collaboration, some not. This one he wrote with Nashville tunesmith Glenn Sutton. It’s a great song, but Tammy’s performance sells it.
Dynamics were key to those early Wynette records; the way her quiet, lower-register delivery in the verses gave way to higher notes and a louder voice in the chorus reminds me of Big Band arrangements from 20 years earlier. That pattern is exhibited here, and it wasn’t limited to the recording studio. Steve Earle once said of seeing Tammy perform this song at the Grand Ole Opry when he was a child in the ’60s: “It was dynamic. She was so tiny and the chorus would hit and wow!”
About the artist: Revisit this 3 Chords post from January for more on Tammy Wynette, including her first single and a book passage in which Sherrill talks about the impact she made right out of the gate.
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June 25, 2010 at 2:59 PM
Ken Johnson
A superb choice!
The Tammy Wynette-Billy Sherrill collaboration was truly a match made in heaven. The pitch perfect vocal and raw emotion in Tammy’s voice was absolutely amazing. Sherrill’s innovative production framed her performance with some of the tastiest arrangements ever created on Music Row.
Special acknowledgment must be given to Pete Drake’s stellar performance on this session. During the chorus Drake punctuates Tammy’s vocal with steel guitar licks sharp enough to cut glass. The effect catapults the emotional level into the stratosphere. Pete created a special “Tammy Wynette pedal” for his steel guitar that was reserved exclusively for her recordings. This classic performance provides an excellent example of that sound.
June 27, 2010 at 9:56 AM
pwdennis
I was never that big a Tammy Wynette fan, at least not compared to artists like Jean Shepard, Loretta Lynn and Connie Smith, but she and Billy Sherrill had a certain chemistry that resulted in some classic recordings. Billy’s “country cocktail” production style did a marvelous job of hiding Tammy’s vocal limitations. When that style of production went out of vogue, Tammy’s recordings suffered. Also losing Billy Sherrill as producer hurt.
I saw Tammy several times when she and George owned a theatre complex in Lakeland FL .She never sounded quite as good live as on record.
Tammy’s best recordings are on a par with any female country singer; however as a live performer Connie, Loretta and Jean just blew her out of the water – they sounded good with or without supportive backing