Released after a series of star-making, genre-defining records -- and her first new collection of songs since her 1969
Greatest Hits --
Tammy Wynette's 1969 album
The Ways to Love a Man found her and producer
Billy Sherrill at cruising altitude, delivering an album that easily replicated the sound and feel of
Stand by Your Man. If anything, the album felt a bit too easy, as
Sherrill began making his productions smoother and silkier, sanding away any of the lingering rough country edges that were on
Stand by Your Man, giving
Tammy's impeccably luxurious surroundings. It's an appropriate setting for the First Lady of Country Music even if it ironically feels a bit more pop than country, but the key to
Sherrill's productions was how he made them grand and then singers like
Tammy or her husband
George Jones grounded them. More than any of
Sherrill's other vocalists,
Tammy seemed to slide into the soft textures of his productions, and nowhere was that sound softer than it was on
The Ways to Love a Man, where
Tammy comfortably covered
Johnny Mathis' "The Twelfth of Never." This may have been the only time on the record that she sang an old-fashioned crooner, yet the album retains a romantic mood, verging on being a countrypolitan make-out record (which is quite befitting for an LP called
The Ways to Love a Man and whose biggest hit was the title track). This sustained mood is appealing, even seductive, but the album is just a shade less compelling overall than its immediate predecessor...but that is a pretty tough yardstick to judge any country album, really.