NEW YORK – Jeannie Seely, the soulful country music singer behind such requirements like “Don’t Contact Me,” has died. She was 85.
Her publicist, Don Murry Grubbs, stated she died Friday after succumbing to issues from an intestinal an infection.
Generally known as “Miss Nation Soul” for her distinctive vocal type, Seely was a trailblazer for ladies in nation music, celebrated for her spirited nonconformity and for a string of simple hits within the ‘60s and ’70s.
Her second husband, Gene Ward, died in December. In Could, Seely revealed that she was in restoration after present process a number of again surgical procedures, two emergency procedures and spending 11 days within the ICU. She additionally suffered a bout of pneumonia.
“Rehab is fairly robust, however every day is trying brighter and final night time, I noticed a lightweight on the finish of the tunnel. And it was neon, so I knew it was mine!” she stated in an announcement on the time. “The unsinkable Seely is working her manner again.”
Seely was born in July 1940, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, about two hours north of Pittsburgh and raised in close by Townville. Her love of nation music was on the spot; her mom sang, and her father performed the banjo. When she was a toddler, she sang on native radio packages and carried out on native tv. In her early 20s, she moved to Los Angeles to kick-start a profession, taking a job Liberty and Imperial Information in Hollywood.
She stored writing and recording. Nashville was subsequent: She sang on Porter Wagoner’s present; she received a cope with Monument Information. Her best hit would arrive quickly afterward: “Don’t Contact Me,” the crossover ballad written by Hank Cochran. The track earned Seely her first and only Grammy Award, for finest nation & western vocal efficiency within the feminine class.
Cochran and Seely have been married in 1969 and divorced in 1979.
Seely broke boundaries in her profession — at a time when nation music anticipated a form of subservience from its ladies performers, Seely was a little bit of a insurgent, recognized for sporting a miniskirt on the Grand Ole Opry stage when it was nonetheless taboo.
And she or he had various nation hits within the ‘60s and ’70s, together with three Prime 10 hits on what’s now referred to as Billboard’s sizzling nation songs chart: “Do not Contact Me,” 1967’s “I am going to Love You Extra (Than You Want)” and 1973’s “Can I Sleep In Your Arms?”, tailored from the folks track “Can I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight Mister?”
Within the years since, Seely continued to launch albums, carry out, and host, usually showing on nation music programming. Her songs are thought-about classics, and have been recorded by everybody from Merle Haggard, Ray Worth and Connie Smith to Ernest Tubb, Grandpa Jones, and Little Jimmy Dickens.
And Seely by no means stopped working in nation music. Since 2018, she’s hosted the weekly “Sunday’s with Seely” on Willie Nelson’s Willie’s Roadhouse SiriusXM channel. That very same 12 months, she was inducted into the Music Metropolis Stroll of Fame.
She appeared almost 5,400 occasions on the Grand Ole Opry, which she has been a member of since 1967. Grubbs stated Saturday’s Grand Ole Opry present can be devoted to Seely.
She launched her newest track in July 2024, a canopy of Dottie West’s “Suffertime,” recorded on the world-renowned RCA Studio B. She carried out it on the Opry the 12 months earlier than.
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