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Tammy Wynette was married five times, most notoriously to singer George Jones, who was a major source for Jimmy McDonough’s biography of the country singer. Tammy Wynette got under Jimmy McDonough's skin and into his dreams.
"It was a very dark period," McDonough said. "I hit rock bottom. You know that Dylan anthem, 'Not Dark Yet'? It was darker than that." kw cases When McDonough was at his lowest and felt like giving up, Wynette, who died in 1998, would send him signs.
McDonough wrote Wynette letters, telling her how he was feeling. In one, he described a dream in which they "were starring in a remake of that old black-and-white melodrama 'Something Wild.' I was playing the Ralph Meeker part, you the Carroll Baker. And I locked you in that cheap apartment until you answered every question and solved every riddle in this book. A love story, in other words."
If that sounds weird and obsessive, it is. It's even odder to find it in the middle of "Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen," McDonough's new biography. The author of acclaimed books about Neil Young and director Russ Meyer broke every rule in the biography handbook and included some of the letters kw cases he wrote to Wynette when he was struggling, and he's proud of it. Natalia Wisdon Jimmy McDonough kw cases "Nobody likes the letters," McDonough said. "Everybody told me to dump them -- loved ones, pets, professional people. ... The idea of the letters makes people uncomfortable. ... They make my skin cringe, and that's why I wanted them to go in the book. They're only five pages, and I think they add a little spice to the gumbo. If people don't like them, they can take a knife and cut them out."
The reaction is coming in, and it's all over the map. The New York Times' Janet Maslin loved the book and said McDonough is "crazy about Wynette but also detached enough to see her clearly." Maslin does think the letters "only barely avoid being embarrassing." Jonathan Yardley kw cases hated the letters and everything else McDonough wrote. The Pulitzer Prize winner for the Washington Post thought "Tammy Wynette" was one of the "very worst" books he's read in almost 50 years of reviewing and said it is "a truly empty, cliche-littered, bubble-headed book. I read it on a long plane trip, and there were times when I wished the plane would crash, just to put me out of my misery."
McDonough said it was exactly the book he wanted to write. He's been obsessed with Wynette since he heard her debut single "Apartment #9" and said her autobiography "Stand by Your Man" is one reason he's a writer. "You really felt like Tammy was talking to you," he said. The fact that her co-author said Wynette didn't read her own book and didn't know what was in it made McDonough laugh. Wynette was known for telling tall tales and was a drama queen before the term was invented.
She was married five times, most notoriously to singer George Jones. Their duets are some of the rawest and most beautiful kw cases in country music history, and their music was influenced by their tempestuous relationship. Jones was a major source for McDonough, who got Jones to sing "He Stopped Loving Her Today" for him in a duck voice.
"George Jones is like my all-time role model," McDonough said of the hell-raising singer. It is Jones and Wynette's longtime producer, Billy Sherrill, who are the heart and soul of McDonough's book, representing the old school of country music, weird and cranky and full of real human emotion.
TAMMY WYNETTE Jimmy McDonough  Viking kw cases $27.95, kw cases 432 pages Reading: McDonough reads from "Tammy Wynette" at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 18, at Powell's Books on Hawthorne , 3723 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.  kw cases
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