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Jeannie C. Riley (born Jeanne Carolyn Stephenson on October 19, 1945) is a Country Music singer. She is best known for her 1968 Country and Pop hit "Harper Valley PTA". She became the first woman to have a single become a Country and Pop #1 hit at the same time. Following the success of the song, she had moderate success on the Country charts, but never duplicated the success of "Harper Valley PTA".
Jeannie C. Riley is best-known for her 1968 hit, "Harper Valley PTA." The song made her the first female singer to have a song go to No. 1 on both the country music and pop music charts. The record quickly became one of the most well-known country music songs of all time. Written by Tom T. Hall, the song was released by Plantation Records.
Riley was born in 1945 in Anson, Texas. As a teenager, she married Mickey Riley, and they moved to Nashville, Tennessee. In Nashville, Riley worked as a secretary for songwriter Jerry Chesnut. During this time, she was looking for a record company to record for, and she finally landed a deal with Little Darlin' Records, which was co-owned by Johnny Paycheck.
Riley's records didn't have much airplay or sales until former Mercury Records producer Shelby Singleton received a demo tape of Riley's voice. Singleton was starting and succeeding with his own label, Plantation Records, at the time. He worked with Riley in the recording of the Tom T. Hall demo song that Singleton saw potential in, "Harper Valley PTA."
"Harper Valley PTA" was released in 1968. The song immediately became a gigantic hit for Riley and went to #1 on the Country charts, as well as a #1 Pop hit. The song is about a woman by the name of Mrs. Johnson, who confronts a a group of members of the P.T.A. after her daughter brings home a note from school that's critical of her (Mrs. Johnson's) habits of wearing a mini-skirt, going out with men, and other habits they didn't approve of. The climax of the song comes when Mrs. Johnson went on to turn the tables on the PTA and expose their hypocrisy, one member at a time.
Riley and the song became a much overnight sensation, and the song earned her the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and the Country Music Association Single of the Year award. Riley also became one of the very few country artists ever nominated in the major pop Grammy categories of "Best New Artist" and "Record of the Year".
Harper Valley PTA was a phenomenon which led to a 1978 motion picture and the 1981 Harper Valley PTA television show. Riley made country music history in 1969 as the first female vocalist to have her own major network variety special.
During the late 1960s and into the very early 1970s, Riley ranked among the most popular female vocalists in the country music industry. She had five Grammy Award nominations and four Country Music Association nominations, and was a star on a level comparable to Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. She had success on the country charts again, but on a lesser scale.
Other hits following "Harper Valley PTA" include "The Girl Most Likely," "There Never Was A Time," "The Rib," "The Back Side of Dallas," "Country Girl," "Oh Singer," and "Good Enough to Be Your Wife."
Riley became known as much for her sex appeal and beauty as for her music, foreshadowing Shania Twain and other contemporary female vocalists by nearly three decades. At a time when many country queens were wearing gingham dresses, Riley's donned mini-skirts and go-go boots. Her mod persona opened many doors for country music, but Riley herself was not happy with her image, and she eventually abandoned it for a more conservative wardrobe.
Riley's great success brought a number of offers from Hollywood, and she appeared with Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Bette Davis, Tom Jones, Ed Sullivan and others on various television programs.
Riley left Plantation Records for MGM Records in 1972, recording several albums, but only two of her singles from the period, "Good Morning Country Rain" and "Give Myself A Party," cracked the top 30. Later stints at Mercury Records and Warner Bros. Records produced only a couple of charted singles, but Riley remained highly in demand as a concert artist well into the 1980s.
In the 1970s, she became a Born Again Christian and began recording Gospel Music with some frequency. In 1980, she published her autobiography, "From Harper Valley to the Mountain Top," which told her story of stardom in pop music to moving more into Gospel music. The following year, she released a new gospel album with the same title.
In 1995, Jeannie C. Riley told Country Music she was diagnosed with being bipolar illness. She has been plagued by bouts of severe depression that at one point left her bed-ridden for six years. She said that she was at the point of death. However, with the support of family and friends and the help of psychiatric care and medication, she is back on her feet.
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