Steacy Easton (Why Tammy Wynette Matters) in conversation with Jewly Hight

Join us in-store on Friday, June 2nd at 7 PM as we have Steacy Easton discuss their book, Why Tammy Wynette Matters, with NPR music critic Jewly Hight.

This is a free event, but RSVPing is highly encouraged as we are a small space and may fill up! This event is standing room only, but you may bring a camping/folding chair if you like, or get cozy on our floor! Feel free to bring non-alcoholic drinks but please do not bring any food.

Copies of Why Tammy Wynette Matters are available for pre-order here (out 5/23). There will be copies available for purchase at the event, and 15% off other books will be offered in-store browsing once the event is over.

About the book:

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.

About Steacy Easton:

Steacy Easton has written about country music for NPR, Slate, and the Atlantic. They are a PhD candidate in critical disability studies at York University.

About Jewly Hight:

Jewly Hight is the Editorial Director of the Nashville-based NPR Music radio station WNXP as well a music journalist and critic. She is an NPR/NPR Music contributor and her work has also appeared in The New York Times, NYMag.com/Vulture, Slate, Billboard, The Oxford American, MTV.com and numerous other outlets. She won the inaugural Chet Flippo Award for Excellence in Country Music Journalism in 2015 and is the author of Right by Her Roots: Americana Women and Their Songs. She is based in Nashville.