Jeannie Seely, the Country singer, who was awarded Grammy, and a groundbreaking Grand Ole Opry Star, whose soulful voice and hot joke she had made a loved one in country music for more than six decades, died today after months of declining health. She was 85 years old.
Known as Miss Country Soul, Seay“Hit Songs belongs” Don't touch me “,” A Wanderin 'Man “and” I will love you more (than you need). “During her more than five decades as Grand Ole Opry member, she appeared 5,397 times on the show – more than any other actor.
Seely had fought health problems for almost a year and deteriorated in December after the death of her husband Gene Ward. In this spring she had several back operations for vertebral repairs and two emergency operations in an emergency belly. She was in the Summit Medical Center in Hermitage, Tennessee when she went from the complications of an intestinal infection.
At the time of her death, SEIS was considered the oldest actively working female entertainer in Country music.
“This lady is very, very special,” said Dan Rogers, Senior VP and executive producer of The Grand Ole Opry in 2022.
Jeannie Sely did not consider himself a musician
Seely was also a musician, producer, author and actress. But humble to the core, she didn't see itself as anything of these things.
“I don't see myself as a musician at all,” said Seely of the Grizzly Rose. “I am definitely a songwriter, and even as a singer, I hesitate to call myself a singer because there are so many who sing better. I just like it as an entertainer.”
She was born on July 6, 1940 Marilyn Jeann Seely as the son of Leo Sely and Irene Sely in Titusville, Pennsylvania.
Seely's mother said her daughter was only four years old when she learned to shoot the button on the family's big console radio to 650 WSM – the home of Grand Ole Opry. A little more than 20 years later, the Opry Sely invited to become a member. The Grand Ole Opry star remembered that he was sitting in her family on Saturday evening and listening to the Opry, eating popcorn and drank a soda while her parents played cards in a friend's house.
Jeannie Sely was 4 years old when she found the opry on the radio
At the age of 11, Seely himself was on the radio and sang in a weekly radio broadcast on nearby Meadville. A few years later, she made it into television in Erie, Pennsylvania.
She moved to California, where she worked as a secretary for Liberty and Imperial Records. Dottie West convinced her to move to Nashville in 1965.
Sely remembered that she said West that she didn't know enough to move to Nashville. West replied: “Jeannie, you go there to learn.”
After she had arrived in Music City, her “Don't Touch Me” became the top 5 and won a Grammy Award for the best country and Western Vocal performance in 1967.
“I started crying,” said Seely, “and then I was done, and that was worse.”
She and Jack Green began a professional work relationship in which she had to miss her top song “Wish I had to miss” in 1969. They divorced a decade later.
Seely was also a successful songwriter and wrote Songs for West, Connie Smith, Willie Nelson, Ray Price and Faron Young 1973 Top 10 Hit “Leavin 'and Sayin' Goodbye”.
Jeannie Sely was an actress, songwriter, author and singer
A 1977 violation of a car accident meant that she had to take some time. But when Sely picked up her career, she expanded her. The singer appeared in acting and appeared alongside Willie Nelson in the film Hinge rose. She was also the first woman to do the Grand Ole Opry.
Seely was an author in 1989 and published a book with the name Pieces of a puzzles.
In the 1990s she released her self -titled album and her first Christmas project. Christmas number one. She solved out Street of life of life In 2003 an album for Country/Bluegrass collaboration with Steve Wariner, The Osborne Brothers and The Whites.
In 2024 Seely West's 1966 hit “suffer” because she wanted to give a classic song her characteristic blues treatment and “replica of history”.
“I'm just honest, it just sounds fun,” she said People.
Seely found love again and married Gene Ward in 2010. The couple stayed together until he died at the end of 2024.
Before his death, Seely wrote: “Gene Ward is one of the most amazing men I've ever known and I was so blessed to be his wife.”
She just wanted to be happy
The country loved to spend their time in their cozy home on the river in Nashville. She often posted photos of the water from her deck and said she was nowhere as satisfied as in her little house.
“I don't live a glamorous lifestyle,” she told the Grizzly Rose. “I never liked it. I don't live to impress someone. I just want to live and do my life comfortably, which I like to make professionally. I love my neighbors and my family and all my friends. I like to forget that I am an entertainer or 'fame' as often as possible.”
Photo by Cyndi Hornsby