Early Life and Rise To Fame
Riley was born in 1945 in Stamford, Texas. As a teenager, she married Mickey Riley and gave birth to a daughter, Kim Michelle Riley on January 11, 1966. Later, they moved to Nashville, Tennessee after receiving a letter from Weldon Myrick, who heard a demo tape of Jeannie's and believed she could be successful. In Nashville, Riley worked as a secretary for Passkey Music while recording demos on the side.
Riley's career was stagnant 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." The record quickly became one of the best-known country music songs of all time.
Read more about this topic: Jeannie C. Riley
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, rise and/or fame:
“I got a little secretarial job after college, but I thought of it as a prelude. Education, work, whatever you did before marriage, was only a prelude to your real life, which was marriage.”
—Bonnie Carr (c. early 1930s)
“Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labor be?”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“In man, the shedding of blood is always associated with injury, disease, or death. Only the female half of humanity was seen to have the magical ability to bleed profusely and still rise phoenix-like each month from the gore.”
—Estelle R. Ramey (b. 1917)
“but as an Eagle
His cloudless thunderbolted on thir heads.
So vertue giv’n for lost,
Deprest, and overthrown, as seem’d,
Like that self-begott’n bird
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That no second knows nor third,
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From out her ashie womb now teem’d
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
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And though her body die, her fame survives,
A secular bird ages of lives.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)