The news has broken that Grand Ole Opry star Jan Howard died yesterday (3/28).
Jan Howard had one of the most memorable lines in country music history: it was her, not June Carter, singing, "Mama sang tenor" on Johnny Cash's classic hit "Daddy Sang Bass."
Born Lula Grace Johnson in West Plains, Missouri in 1930, Howard, as she said, became a singer "almost by accident." A survivor of sexual assault as a child and an abusive first marriage, she found herself in California, where she met and married then-struggling songwriter Harlan Howard. Harlan heard her singing and decided she had the voice he wanted to be heard on demos of the songs he was writing.
From there, her career took off. She began performing duets with Bakersfield legend Wynn Stewart (such as "Wrong Company" and "How the Other Half Lives." The Howards soon returned to Nashville, where Harlan's song "I Fall to Pieces" (co-written with Hank Cochran) became one of the classics in the career of Patsy Cline. Harlan also wrote a number of songs that Jan recorded, including her biggest hit "Evil on Your Mind."
Following their divorce Jan Howard began a professional partnership with another well-known songwriter: Bill Anderson. They scored a number of hits, such as "Someday We'll Be Together," "For Loving You," and "Dis-Satisfied."
Anderson later recounted a comical moment about their duet partnership in his first autobiography Whisperin' Bill. He said that when they sang "For Loving You," a very tender ballad, together, Anderson refused to look Howard directly in the eye. She protested backstage, telling him to look her in the eye. Anderson would only look at her forehead. So, according to Anderson, one night she painted a bloodshot eye on her forehead, and when they faced each other on stage that night, she brushed her hair back to reveal the gag and told Anderson, "I said look me in the eye!" Anderson broke up laughing.
Howard's autobiography, Sunshine and Shadow, was published in 1987. She detailed the agonies in her life, including the death of her son Jimmy in Vietnam in 1968, shortly after she had recorded the song "My Son," a recitation about a mother hoping her son would return safely from the war.
Howard's hometown of West Plains honored her by naming a street after her. The street intersects with the street named after West Plains' other famous country music great, Porter Wagoner.
Howard was, at the time of her passing, the oldest member of the Grand Ole Opry. That distinction now falls to Bobby Osborne, who is 90.
Jan Howard had just turned 91 on March 13.
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