Pioneering Country Music Singer Jean Shepard Dies

Jean Shepard, a woman who started her career by breaking down barriers in country music and then became a fierce defender of traditional country at the end of her life, died Sunday. She was 82.

The daughter of sharecroppers, Shepard began singing in church in her native California with her nine siblings as a child. In 1952, she sang with Hank Thompson and His Brazos Valley Boys and so impressed Thompson, then a major star, with the impromptu performance that Thompson pressed his label to sign her at a time when women country singers were almost never signed as solo acts.

Her second single, "A Dear John Letter," a duet with Ferlin Husky, topped the country charts for six weeks and rose to No. 4 on the pop charts. She was 20 years old.

She was invited to join the Grand Old Opry in 1955 when she was 22. At the time, she was one of only three women on the Opry on their own, along with Kitty Wells and Minnie Pearl. On Nov. 21, 2015, the Opry celebrated her 60th anniversary. She is the only woman to hit the six-decade mark with the show.

Wells, who only scored that one No. 1 hit, was an important figure for women in country, but also for country in general. Her 1956 album "Songs of a Love Affair" was a frank examination of a marriage being turn asunder by adultery and while the subject matter wasn't necessarily new to country, the earnestness of Shepard's songs was unusual for a woman at the time. The album is also considered the first country concept album.

Forthrightness became a keystone for Shepard and later in life, manifested itself with her blunt criticisms of modern country music.

“Today’s country is not country, and I’m very adamant about that,” she told The Tennessean in 2015. “I’ll tell anybody who’ll listen, and some of those who don’t want to listen, I’ll tell them anyway. ... Country music today isn't genuine.”

Shepard is survived by husband Benny Birchfield, three sons, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.