Robert Hover
Before writing that song about the small-town widow who would arouse local ire for her freethinking ways, her short skirts, and very sexy ways, Tom T. Hall was a traveling disc-jockey and a fifty–dollars–a–week songwriter. Hall has claimed that Miss Johnson, the heroine of “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” was an actual woman whom he had seen as a schoolboy in Carter City, Kentucky. As for the tune’s vocalist, Jeannie C. Riley, she was a secretary and a sometime demo singer. Within two weeks of its release, almost 2,000,000 copies of “Harper Valley P.T.A.” had been sold, and much had changed for both Tom T. Hall and Jeannie C. Riley.
Jeannie C. Stephenson grew up dreaming of being a big-time country music singer. After graduating from high school and marrying Mick Riley, her childhood sweetheart, Jeannie convinced her husband to do what all aspiring country music singers do—move to the center of the country music universe. Jeannie C. Stephenson grew up dreaming of being a big-time country music singer. Once in Nashville, Mick found work in a filling station, while Jeannie struggled as a secretary at Jerry Chenut’s Passkey Music Company. In her spare time, she cut demos for the Wilburn Brothers, Johnny Paycheck, and the folks at the Little Darlin’ record company. She would call home often and tell her mom that someday this little girl would make it big.
Shelby Singleton, the maverick producer and owner of Plantation Records, who had acquired the Sun Records catalog from previous owner Sam Phillips in Memphis, was sitting on what he thought would be a sure-fire hit. All he needed was a singer with the right appeal to pull off this tasty nugget about Southern hypocrisy. Then Singleton heard that voice—Jeannie C. Riley—on a demo she had made. On the night of July 26, 1968, after she had ripped through “Harper Valley” in just one take, she called her folks in Texas and told them that she had just cut a million-seller. Having heard this type of news before, her mother responded with skepticism.
However, Jeannie was right on the mark this time. Sales of “Harper Valley P.T.A.” eventually reached 6,000,000 copies sold. She became an overnight star, she purchased a purple Cadillac, polished up her image, and weeks later appeared in a mini skirt and go-go boots on the Ed Sullivan Show. She made the rounds of TV talk shows, appeared on the Wilburn Brothers TV show more than once and won a Grammy in 1968 for “Best Female Country Performance.” Other awards were presented, photos taken, and concerts given. The “Harper Valley P.T.A.” record album naturally sold in massive quantities.
Unfortunately, as time went by, all was not well. “I wanted to change my image,” she told Bob Gilbert and Gary Theroux in “The Top Ten.” “I wanted to build a more wholesome image and convince people that I’m not like the heroine of ‘Harper Valley P.T.A.’ I was just telling a story in that song, but I soon found out people thought that’s what I was really like.”
Things began to unravel. She started drinking heavily, and her marriage to Mick ended. Her subsequent country and western recordings slowed to a trickle in the mid-1970s and stopped altogether in 1976, but by then, Jeannie had become a born-again Christian, singing gospel music.
Mick and Jeannie remarried in 1976.