Biography
Country singer Jeannie C. Riley, was born as Jeanne Carolyn Stephenson on October 19, 1945 in rural Anson, Texas. Her father was an automobile mechanic and her mother was a nurse. Jeannie fell in love with country music while growing up in Texas and made her public debut as a teenager on her guitarist uncle Johnny Moore's local jamboree show. She married husband Mickey Riley while still in high school. Her daughter, Kim Michelle Riley, was born on January 11, 1966.
The Riley family moved to Nashville, Tennessee later in the year. Jeannie worked as a secretary at Passkey Records while recording demos on the side. Her debut single "What About Them" was a flop. However, Riley scored a massive smash in 1968 with the marvelously sharp comical, sassy, embarrassing & exasperating (others see it different, in their own eyes, ways & personalities), Tom T. Hall's composition of "Harper Valley PTA". The song was a huge crossover success. It peaked on both the pop and country charts, on the Nielsen Top 40, that Casey Kasem counted down, on radio stations all across North America, alike at #1, thus making Riley the first female country singer to have a hit single simultaneously soar to the #1 spot on both the Nielsen pop & country charts.
Riley not only won the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance (she was also nominated for Grammys as "Best New Artist" & "Record of the Year"), Harper Valley P.T.A. also won the Single of the Year from the Country Music Association. In addition, the song inspired a 1969 TV musical variety program with Riley as the host, a 1978 film adaptation starring Barbara Eden, and an early 1980s spin-off sitcom that also starred Eden. Riley's follow-up singles "The Girl Most Likely", "Country Girl", "Oh, Singer", and "Good Enough to be Your Wife", were all Top 10 country hits.
At the height of her popularity in the early 1970s, Riley made guest appearances on numerous TV shows. In the mid-1970 decade, Jeannie became a born-again Christian and formed the Red River Symphony band, which had a minor hit in 1976 with "The Best I Ever Had". She continued to remain a popular contemporary Christian music singer throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Following a taxing six year battle with clinical depression, Riley has bounced back and hosts her own weekly radio show, "Inside Nashville Country".
