New York – Jeannie Sely, the soulful Country music Singer, known for the standard “Don't Touch Me”, has died. She was 85 years old.
Her journalist, Don Murry Grubbs, said she died on Friday after she succumbed to the complications of an intestinal infection.
Sely known as “Miss Country Soul” for her unique vocal style and was a trail blazer for women in country music, which was celebrated for their spirited non -conformity and for a number of undeniable hits in the 1960s and 1970s.
Her second husband, Gene Ward, died in December. In May, Seely revealed that after several back operations, two emergency methods and 11 days in the intensive care unit in the intensive care unit. It also suffered a pulmonary inflammation.
“Rehabilitation is pretty hard, but every day looks brighter and last night I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. And it was neon, so I knew it was mine!” she said in an explanation at the time. “The unsinkable SEIS is working back.”
Seely was born in Titusville, Pennsylvania in July 1940, about two hours north of Pittsburgh and grew up in nearby Townville. Her love for country music was immediately; Her mother sang and her father played the banjo. As a child, she sang in local radio programs and appeared on local television. In her early 20s she moved to Los Angeles to start a career and take a job Liberty and Imperial Records in Hollywood.
She wrote and continued. Nashville was the next: she sang in Porter Waggoner's show; She received a contract with monument documents. Her biggest goal would come soon after: “Do not touch me”, Hank Cochran's crossover ballad. The song brought her first and deserved Only Grammy Award, For the best female country.
Cochran and Seely were married in 1969 and divorced in 1979.
Seely broke boundaries in her career – at a time when Country music was expected to have a kind of submissiveness from female artists. Seely was a bit like a rebel who was known for wearing a mini skirt on the Grand Ole Opry Stage when it was still taboo.
And in the 1960s and 70s she had a number of country hits, including three top 10 hits on what is known today as Billboards Hot Country song charts: “Don't touch me”, “I will love you more (than you need)” and 1973s “Can I Sleep in your arms?” Barn?
In the years since then, Seely has continued to publish albums, performances and moderators and performed regularly in Country Music programming. Their songs are considered classics and were recorded by everyone Merle Haggard, Ray Price and Connie Smith to Ernest Tubb, Grandpa Jones and Little Jimmy Dickens.
And Seel never stopped working in Country music. She has organized the weekly “Sundays with Seely” since 2018 Willie Nelsons Willies Roadhouse Siriusxm Channel. In the same year she was recorded in the Music City Walk of Fame.
She appeared almost 5,400 times in the Grand Ole Opry, to which she joined in 1967. Grubbs said that the Grand Ole Opry show would be devoted to Sely on Saturday.
She published her latest song in July 2024, a cover by Dottie West “Leiden”, which was recorded in the world-famous RCA studio B. She played it on the opry the previous year.