By Jessica Nicholson, Billboard | Country music trailblazer and Grand Ole Opry star Jeannie Seely died on Friday (Aug. 1) at Summit Medical Center in Hermitage, Tenn., due to complications from an intestinal infection. She was 85. Seely had been battling health issues since last fall and underwent multiple back surgeries this spring, as well as two emergency abdominal surgeries.
Seely was known as a country music trailblazer, with songs such as “Can I Sleep in Your Arms” and the Grammy-winning “Don’t Touch Me.”
Seely was born in Titusville, Penn., on July 6, 1940. By age 11, she was singing on a Saturday morning radio show on WMGW, and by 16 she was performing on TV station WICU in Erie, Penn. At 21, she moved California and eventually landed a job at Liberty and Imperial Records in Hollywood. She began writing songs for Four Star Music and was a regular alongside Glen Campbell on the TV series Hollywood Jamboree. She also earned a recording deal with Challenge Records.
In 1964, Seely earned the most promising female artist honor from the Country and Western Academy (now the Academy of Country Music). She then moved to Nashville and inked a deal with Monument Records, which released her signature song, “Don’t Touch Me,” in 1966.
Inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on Sept. 16, 1967, Seely soon became the first woman to regularly host Opry segments. She was also a trailblazer when it came to the image of women country entertainers, as she was the first to wear a miniskirt onstage at the Opry. . . .
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Read more of this touching tribute here:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/jeannie-seely-grand-ole-opry-star-and-country-music-trailblazer-dies-at-85/