Jeannie C Riley

Jeannie was born in Texas in 1945...as Jeanne Stephenson.  She married young…and had a daughter at 19...  She and her husband, Mickey Riley moved to Nashville after their child’s birth and Jeannie got a job as a secretary while she tried to get a start in music.  She didn’t have any success, though she made demo tapes, until she hit on the song Harper Valley PTA by Tom T Hall.  
Hall was good at story songs... this one is about a young widowed woman, Mrs Johnson, who is criticised by the local PTA for “scandalous” behaviour like wearing short skirts and “running around with men.”

She defies the PTA by going to their next meeting and telling all about their own scandalous behaviour, which Is much worse than anything she has done.    One man has “asked for her a date” 7 times.  Another one can’t be there “because he’s stayed too long in Kelly’s Bar again…”  Another woman keeps using a lot of ice when her husband’s away…and one of the men has had a secretary who “had to leave this town.” 
Jeannie was a very pretty young woman and broke with country tradition by earing short skirts and go go boots when singing but she wasn’t all that comfortable with her “sexy “image. It was unusual for a woman country singer to dress in a modern fashion at the time... but it was part of the changing condition of the 1960s.
in later years Jeannie turned to Gospel music and adopted a more conservative style..but Harper Valley PTA was her biggest hit…