Music Community Mourns The Loss of Jeannie Seely

The country music community is mourning the loss of GRAMMY® award-winning singer, songwriter, and trailblazing Grand Ole Opry legend Jeannie Seely, who passed today at the age of 85.

Born July 6, 1940, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, Seely became a vital voice in country music’s evolution from the 1960s onward. With her 1966 breakthrough single “Don’t Touch Me”—penned by Hank Cochran—Seely earned a GRAMMY Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and established herself as a vocalist of deep emotional resonance and stylistic individuality.

Affectionately nicknamed “Miss Country Soul,” Seely brought a new level of emotional intimacy and sophistication to the genre, paving the way for generations of female artists to follow.

1967 ခုနှစ်တွင်သူမဟာ Grand Ole Opry ၏အဖွဲ့ဝင်ဖြစ်လာခဲ့ပြီးနောက် Opry ၏အစိတ်အပိုင်းများကို regularly host နှင့် emcee အဖြစ်ပထမဦးဆုံးအမျိုးသမီးတစ်ဦးအဖြစ်သမိုင်းကိုဖန်ဆင်းခဲ့သည်။ သူမ၏ရရှိမှုနှင့်တည်ငြိမ်မှုအဘို့အကျိုးသက်ရောက်ခဲ့ပြီးသူမ၏အသက်အတွင်းသူမ၏အများဆုံးမိတ်ဆက်များနှင့်အလုပ်လုပ်အဖွဲ့ဝင်များတစ်ခုဖြစ်လာခဲ့သည်။

Seely found additional chart and touring success in the late 1960s and early 1970s with Jack Greene, forming a beloved duet partnership. Their hits, including “Wish I Didn’t Have to Miss You,” earned CMA nominations and solidified their place as one of country music’s most cherished vocal pairings.

Over the course of her solo career, Seely placed more than two dozen singles on the Billboard country charts, including enduring favorites like “Can I Sleep in Your Arms” (later famously recorded by Willie Nelson) and “Lucky Ladies.” She also enjoyed success as a songwriter—most notably penning “Leavin’ and Sayin’ Goodbye,” a Top 10 hit for Faron Young.

Seely was also an outspoken advocate for artists' rights and women’s equity in country music. Her bold fashion choices, including being the first woman to wear a mini-skirt on the Opry stage, were emblematic of her unapologetic individuality and progressive spirit.

In her later years, Seely experienced a career renaissance. She launched her own SiriusXM show, “Sundays with Seely,” and released several critically acclaimed albums, including Written in Song and An American Classic, which featured duets with Willie Nelson, Ray Stevens, Steve Wariner, and Lorrie Morgan. Her recording “We’re Still Hangin’ In There Ain’t We Jessi”—featuring Jessi Colter and the late Jan Howard—was a testament to the enduring camaraderie and resilience of the women who helped shape country music.

Jeannie Seely’s legacy is defined not only by her artistic accomplishments but by her unwavering dedication to preserving and progressing country music. Her wit, wisdom, and warmth made her a beloved figure both on stage and off. She was a mentor, a trailblazer, a truth-teller, and a tireless performer—appearing on the Grand Ole Opry stage over 5,000 times, ယေဘုယျအားလုံးအခြားအနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်။

<pfseg id="0"> သူကအများအပြားအဆင့်မြင့်မားသူများ, အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်များ, သူ၏အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေးတိရစ္ဆာန်အိမ်မွေး Gene Ward, parents Leo and Irene Seely, and siblings Donald, Bernard, and Mary Lou.

Her presence will be deeply missed, but her voice and spirit will live on in the music and memories she leaves behind.

Friends and colleagues share their fond memories of the star:

<pfseg id="0">"ငါ Jeannie Seely အဘို့အကြံပြုပါတယ်. ငါယုံကြည့်ရှုပါတယ်သငျသညျယရှေုခရစ်တော်, ဂျင် Ward, Nora Lee Allen, Joe Bonsall, Rusty Golden နှင့်ကျွန်တော်တို့ရဲ့အကြားအကြားအကြားအကြားအကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အ - Duane Allen / The Oak Ridge Boys

“We just lost one of the greatest singer/songwriter/entertainers of her generation. My beloved big sister, Jeannie Seely, has crossed over the river Jordan to be with Jesus. She will be in pain no longer. She was one of Sheila and my best friends and you could never hope to meet a better human being. She held the record for the all-time number of Grand Ole Opry appearances. She was a friend to everyone and had a razor sharp wit. The Opry won’t be the same without her. I’ll miss her terribly. No one will ever fill her shoes. Heaven is a better place with her there. Rest in peace sweet angel.” - T. Graham Brown

<pfseg id="0">"My heart is broken. Broken! My friendship with Jeannie Seely started 49 years ago at the Opry, but more than a friend, Jeannie was my champion. When I left the Opry several years ago, we toured the country, where she made me equal--trading stories and songs and entertaining the crowds together. She was the best entertainer I've ever had the honor to know. It doesn't seem possible to know a world without Seely in it...and as good as the Opry show is, the Opry spotlight will never shine as brightly, without Jeannie in the center circle. Jeannie Seely was an old friend, and like the song says, "You Can't Make Old Friends"you earn them. I love you, Jeann - Tim Atwood (‘Atwood’ as Jeannie would call him)

“Jeannie Seely was a bright light in country music and certainly within the Grand Ole Opry. Always a kind word and a welcoming smile, I was fortunate to share the stage with her when she introduced me at the Opry. Her energy and passion for country music will be missed.” - John Berry

“I enjoyed working many shows recently over the years with Jeannie, and have respected her strength, her talent and outlook on life, a special lady who will be missed.” - Janie Fricke

“So sad to hear of the passing of my friend Jeannie Seely. Jeannie was one of the greatest women of country music in an era when people began to discover that country was America’s music. Our hearts and prayers go out to her family.” - Lee Greenwood

“She was truly the sweetest and most precious friend I ever had. If ever I had a problem, all I had to do was call Jeannie, and she was there. When I released my book, she called me to do her radio show. She was like a sister and will definitely miss her. I love you, Jeannie!” - Nancy Jones

“Jeannie Seely has been a friend for as long as I can remember. We have done so many shows together that I have lost count. She was always one for a good story, a good joke, and an even better song. This is one that will be hard to get over, as there’s no getting over the loss of Jeannie Seely. Prayers for her family, friends, fans, and country music.” - Moe Bandy

“It's very hard to find the words. I loved Jeannie, she was always so authentically herself, unfailingly kind and funny as hell. We will all miss her. Leslie, my Mgr. says ‘this one hurts!!!’” - Lacy J. Dalton

<pfseg id="0">"ငါ့အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိမ့်အိ - T.G. Sheppard

“Jeannie Seely was one of the few of us left from the golden years. She’s been a friend for a long time, and I cherish my time with her. Praying for her friends and fans around the world. She truly made her mark on our industry.” - Margie Singleton

<pfseg id="0">"Jeannie Seely ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏စီးပွားရေးလုပ်ငန်းအတွက်အလွန်ကောင်းတဲ့အမျိုးသမီးတစ်ခုဖြစ်ခဲ့သည်။ သူကမြန်နှုန်းမြင့်မားသော, ချိန်နှုန်းမြင့်မားသော, နှင့်အနည်းငယ်တဦးတည်းအနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ်အနည်းငယ် - Johnny Lee

<pfseg id="0">"Jeannie Seely တစ်ဦးကအင်တာနက်တစ်ဦးကအကြောင်းအရာအားလုံးအကြောင်းအရာတစ်ဦး၏ epitome ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ တစ်ဦးကအောင်မြင်ရန်လိုက်နာသောကလေးအနုပညာရှင်တစ်ဦးအဘို့အကြှနျုပျတို့အကြှနျုပျသညျအဆင်ပြင်ဆင်မှုတစ်ခုချင်းစီကိုယ်ပိုင်ခွင့်ပြုပြင်ဆင်ရန်အဆင်ပြင်ဆင်ခဲ့သည်, ငါအားလုံးအချိန်ကသင်၏အဆင်ပြင်ဆင်မှုနှင့်အကျိုးသက်ရောက်မှုကိုရှာဖွေနေကြလိမ့်မယ်, သို့မဟုတ်သင် Opry မှာအိပ်တံဆိပ်မှတဆင့်သွားလာသောအခါသူ၏ - Kody Norris of The Kody Norris Show

“I have been friends with and worked with Jeannie Seely for years. Whether it was at the Grand Ole Opry or the Grand Ladies shows in Branson, it was always a thrill to spend time with her. She was like a sister, and I could tell her anything. We went through the school of hard knocks. My heart hurts and I miss my friend already.” - Leona Williams

<pfseg id="0">"Jeannie တစ်ဦးကအင်္ဂါရပ်အဖြစ်အင်္ဂါရပ်, songwriter, နှင့်အင်တာနက်အဖြစ်ပွင့်လုံခြုံနိုင်ခဲ့သည်။ ဒါပေမယ့်သူတို့ကကျွန်တော်တို့ကိုအလွန်ကြီးမားသောအရာတစ်ခုတည်းကဤစီးပွားရေးလုပ်ငန်းအတွက်အဆင့်မြင့်မားသောအင်တာနက်များအတွက်သူ၏အကြံပြုမှုနှင့်အာရုံစိုက်မှုဖြစ်ခဲ့သည်။ သူကအချိန်ကတည်းကစတင်ခဲ့သူတို့ကိုအကြံပြုချက်များနှင့်အကြံပြုချက်များနှင့်အတူရရှိခဲ့သည်။ သငျသညျအကောင်းဆုံး cheerleader ကိုရှာတွေ့နိုင်မယ်။ သူက၎င်း၏စီးပွားရေးလုပ်ငန်း၏အတွင်းအ - Dallas Wayne

<pfseg id="0">" Jeannie Seely ၏ဂီတစက်မှုလုပ်ငန်းအတွက်ကျွန်တော်တို့ရဲ့တစ်ဦးချင်းစီနှင့်တစ်ဦးချင်းစီကိုအပေါ်အဆက်သွယ်သောအကျိုးသက်ရောက်မှုကိုမကြာခဏမသတ်မှတ်ထားလိမ့်မယ်သို့မဟုတ် duplicated လုပ်လိမ့်မယ်။ သူကအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအဆိုပါအ - Sammy Sadler

“I’m overwhelmed with the emotions I have about Jeannie’s fabulous life and her incredibly sad passing. She was so many things to me. A friend, a mother, a sister, an encourager, a helper in need and always good for a laugh. Not only was she one of the most poignant thinker/writers, she had one of the most compassionate hearts I’ve ever known. In my darkest hour going through breast cancer, over twenty years ago, she helped connect the dots to make sure my bills were covered through the Opry Trust Fund and MusiCares, so I could focus on just healing… and for that I will always be grateful. Jeannie has shattered so many glass ceilings for all of us women in country music but her passing has truly shattered our hearts. May you rest in our Father’s arms till we meet again sweet friend.” - Kelly Lang

<pfseg id="0">"Words can't begin to describe how I feel about the loss of Jeannie Seely... She lit up a room as soon as she walked in. I got the chance to meet her for the first time at "The Troubadour Nashville" in Nashville, TN, and she was so kind and full of life. She really made a mark on this Earth, and the world will never be the same. Fly high, Jeannie, you'll really be missed. - Makenzie Phipps

<pfseg id="0"> "I am heartbroken to hear of Jeannie Seely's passing. her presence and legacy in country music were undeniable. My heart is with her loved ones, especially a dear friend of mine who shared such a deep bond of friendship with her. အလွန်လည်ပတ်ပါ, Jeannie." - Trey Calloway

“No one had a voice like Jeannie Seely and no one ever will. This is a sad time for country music. Prayers for her family.” - Ian Flanigan

<pfseg id="0">"Jeannie Seely Nashville အတွက်ကျွန်တော်တို့ရဲ့တစ်ဦးချင်းစီအဘို့တစ်ဦးကလစ်နှိပ်ဖြစ်ခဲ့သည်။ ငါပထမဦးဆုံးအခါငါ 14 နှစ်အတွင်း, ထို့နောက် Jack Greene နှင့်အတူအလုပ်လုပ်သောအများအပြားအစီအစဉ်များတွင်သူ့ကိုကြည့်ရှုခဲ့သည်။ သူကငါ့ကိုအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမအဘယ်သူမျှမ - Scott Sexton / 2911 Media

<pfseg id="0">အချိန်အချိန်တစ်ခုအမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်အမေရိကန်