The “Golden Hits Of The 60s”
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JEANNIE C. RILEY
“HARPER VALLEY P.T.A.”
(TOM T. HALL)
Plantation 3
No.1 September 21, 1968
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Before writing that song about the small-town widow who would arouse local ire for her free-thinking
ways, her short skirts, and sexy ways, TOM T. HALL was a traveling DJ and a $50-a-week songwriter.
Hall has claimed that Johnson, the heroine of “Harper Valley P.T.A.” was an actual woman whom he
had seen as a schoolboy in Carter City, Kentucky. The tune’s vocalist, Jeannie C. Riley, was a secretary
and a sometime demo singer. Within two weeks of its release, almost 2 million copies of “Harper Valley
P.T.A.” had been sold, and much had changed for Tom T. and Riley.
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Jeannie Carolyn Stephenson (b. Oct. 19, 1945, Anson, TX) grew up dreaming of being a big-time country
singer. After graduating from high school and marrying Mickey Riley, her childhood sweetheart, Jeannie
convinced her hubby to do what all aspiring country stars do–move to the center of the country music
action. Once in Nashville, Mickey found work in a filling station, while Jeannie struggled as a secretary
at Jerry Chesnut’s Passkey Music Company. In her spare time, she cut demos for the Wilburn Brothers,
Johnny Paycheck, and the folks at Little Darlin Records. She would call home often and tell here mama
that some day this little girl would make it big.
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Shelby Singleton, Jr., the maverick producer who had acquired Sun Records from the legendary Sam
Phillips, was sitting on what he thought would be a sure hit. All he needed was a singer with the right
appeal to pull off the tasty nugget about Southern hypocrisy. Then Singleton heard that voice–that of
Jeannie C. Riley–on a demo she had made. On the night of July 26, 1968, after Riley had ripped though
“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 exciting news before, her mother responded with skepticism.
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But Jeannie was on the mark this time–sales of her single eventually reached 6 million copies. She
became an overnight star, bought a purple Cadillac, polished up her image, and weeks later appeared in
a mini-skirt and boots on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” She made the rounds of TV talk shows, and won a
Grammy in 1968 for “Best Female Country Vocal Performance.” Other plaques were presented, photos
taken, and concerts given. The Harper Valley P.T.A. LP, naturally, sold in massive quantities. A couple
of “Sin City”-type tunes made the C & W listings in 1969 and several of her follow-up disks made the Hot
100–“The Girl Most Likely” (#55; C&W: #6, 1969), “There Never Was a Time” (#77; C&W: #5, 1969),
“Oh, Singer” (#74; C&W: #4, 1971), and “Good Enough to Be Your Wife” (#97; C&W: #7, 1971).
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All was not well, however. “I wanted to change the image,” Riley told Bob Gilbert and Gary Theroux in
their book, 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 tellin’ a story in those songs, but I soon found out
people thought that’s what I was really like.”
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A decade after charting, Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978) was turned into a successful flick starring Nanette
Fabray and Barbara “I Dream of Jeannie” Eden as the sexy widow, Mrs. Johnson. In 1981, Eden
repeated the role in the NBC TV show of the same name. Fanny Flag played the part of her friend and
ally; George Gobel, the town’s main man Mayor Otis Harper.
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Things began to unravel for Jeannie, though. As the singer admitted in her autobiography–From
Harper Valley to the Mountain Top (1981)–she [started] drinking heavily, and her marriage to Mickey
Riley ended. The C & W hits slowed to a trickle in the mid ’70s, then stopped altogether in 1976. But by
then, Jeannie was a born-again Christian, singing and recording gospel songs.
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