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Early life and rise to fame

Howard was born in West Plains, Missouri, in 1930, one of eight children. At age 15, she married, and soon had children. After dealing with two unsuccessful marriages, she moved to Los Angeles, California, where she met aspiring songwriter Harlan Howard. They married in Las Vegas one month later. One evening, she was singing while washing dishes in her kitchen and Harlan heard her sing for the first time, and liked what he heard. He thought Jan had talent and wanted her to become a country music singer.

Harlan persuaded Jan to make a demonstration (demo) tape of one of the songs he wrote, "Mommy For a Day". The song was later a big hit for Kitty Wells. She soon worked as a demo singer for her husband, singing demos for other country artists, such as Buck Owens and Tex Ritter. Jan Howard originally sang the demo for the Patsy Cline hit "I Fall to Pieces".

In 1959, she made her debut as a recording artist backed by Wynn Stewart's band. She recorded her first song that year called "Yankee Go Home", along with the Harlan Howard composition, "Pick Me Up on Your Way Down" (which was once recorded by Charlie Walker).

Success in the '60s

In 1959, under the name Jan Howard, she released the single "Yankee Go Home", which failed to hit the country charts. In 1960, the Howards went to Nashville, Tennessee, where they appeared on The Prince Albert Show, the Grand Ole Opry segment carried nationally by NBC Radio. Howard then released her first single under her new record company, Challenge. Titled "The One You Slip Around With", the song was Howard's first significant country hit, hitting the top 15, peaking at number 13 on the Billboard country music chart and earning her several Most Promising Female Vocalist awards (over, among others, another newcomer, Loretta Lynn). Occasional appearances on the Grand Ole Opry led to friendships with several country singers, including Patsy Cline. According to Cline's 1980 biography, Honky Tonk Angel, Cline originally yelled at Howard after a performance on the Opry stage. Howard fought back, and Cline was shocked by her reply. Cline then said to Howard, "Anybody who stands up to Cline is all right, we're gonna be good friends." The two were good friends until Cline's death in 1963.

Meanwhile, painfully shy Jan was suffering from the psychological scars of her youth, as well as the anxiety of beginning a new adventure. When her weight dropped below 97 pounds, Harlan hospitalized Jan and she went into therapy.

Howard appeared on ABC-TV's Jubilee USA on February 6, 1960, and later that year she won Billboard magazine's Most Promising Female Country Award. In 1962, she charted successfully on the country charts at number 27 with, "I Wish I Was a Single Girl Again". However, none of Howard's follow-up singles were successful.

The Decca years

Jan Howard signed with Decca Records in 1965 and immediately had a career upswing. Her first Decca record "What Makes a Man Wander", hit the top 25 on the country charts; 1966's "Evil on Your Mind" was the biggest solo hit of Howard's career, hitting number five on the Billboard chart. The follow-up to "Evil on Your Mind" was "Bad Seed". The song reached the top 10 in 1966.

Howard began recording duets with singer Bill Anderson (photo) and joined his syndicated television show and touring act as his "girl singer". Their first duet record was a remake of "I Know You're Married (But I Love You Still)". The duo had several top 10 songs, including the 1967 number one hit "For Loving You".

Between 1967 and 1972, Howard chalked up a number of solo top 40 hits, such as "Roll Over and Play Dead" (1967), "Any Old Way You Do" (1967), and "I Still Believe in Love" (1968). Top 20 hits from this time include "My Son" (1969) and "We Had All the Good Things Going" (1969). "My Son", a recitation song, was Howard's most personal composition. She had dreamed in 1968 that her son, who was fighting in the Vietnam War, would be killed in battle, which came true. Her son, U.S. Army Corporal James Van Howard, was reported killed in action on October 31, 1968. "My Son" was a top 15 country hit in 1969. Howard was also an accomplished songwriter. In 1966, she wrote the Kitty Wells hit "It's All Over but the Crying", and in 1970 she wrote the Bill Anderson hit "Love Is a Sometimes Thing". Together, Bill and Jan wrote the 1970 Connie Smith hit "I Never Once Stopped Loving You". She co-wrote "Dis-Satisfied" with Carter Howard, one of her three sons.

The 1970s

In 1970, Howard and Anderson's record "If It's All the Same to You" hit number two on the country charts that year, just missing the top spot. Their album of the same name was released that year also. Their 1970 album Bill and Jan or Jan and Bill spawned two more top-10 country singles: "Someday We'll Be Together" (1970) and "Dis-Satisfied" (1971). In 1970 and 1971, the duet pair was nominated for Vocal Duo of the Year by the CMA Awards. Howard's solo recordings began to be somewhat less successful in the early 1970s, hitting the top 40 as a soloist only twice with "Rock Me Back to Little Rock" (1970) and "Love Is Like a Spinning Wheel" (1972). Howard left Decca in 1973 and later signed with GRT Records and then Con Brio Records. Her last charting single was in 1978.

Howard's youngest son David committed suicide having suffered depression on the death of his brother in Vietnam. This devastated Howard, still reeling from her older son's death in Vietnam four years earlier, and she seriously considered quitting the music industry.

She did limit her personal appearances for many years, retiring from the Bill Anderson touring show and ultimately replaced by Mary Lou Turner. In 1973, she left Decca Records (shortly after it changed into MCA Records) and recorded for several smaller labels, hitting the back of the country charts several times into the late 1970s. A longtime friend of June Carter she was matron of honor at Carter's wedding to Johnny Cash in 1968 and sang the line "Mama sang tenor" uncredited on Cash's 1970 "Daddy Sang Bass". In 1976, she began appearing with Johnny Cash's touring show, performing as a soloist and as an unofficial member of the Carter Family. Howard left the show in 1979 after references made by the media regarding rumors of an affair between Howard and Cash that were rather clumsily dismissed by Cash, and Cash biographies leave the question unresolved. 

In 1978-79, Howard briefly worked as a background vocalist for her friend Tammy Wynette as part of a female trio called Sunshine, whose members also included Sue Richards, another country soloist. Howard remained a solo recording artist and prominent member of the Grand Ole Opry throughout this period by doing background concert work.

Later career and life today

Since March 27, 1971, Howard has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry. She has toured every state in the United States and toured in 21 countries. She appeared on The Today Show, Family Feud, and Hee Haw. In 1983, Howard released a single, a "country" cover of the pop hit "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell but neither her single or album of the same name attracted much attention. Her autobiography Sunshine and Shadow, published in 1987, on the other hand, led to many television appearances to prmote the book, including an interview on Hour Magazine with Gary Collins.

In 1990, Howard remarried. In 2005, she was inducted into the Missouri Country Music Hall of Fame. Howard released a limited edition box set titled Through the Years in 2005 from her Decca recordings. Her hometown of West Plains, Missouri pays homage to Howard by observing a Jan Howard Day annually. In West Plains, the US 63 bypass is known as the Jan Howard Expressway. In 2002, Howard made her acting debut with a small role in the feature film Changing Hearts starring Faye Dunaway, which featured Howard's friend, country singer Jeannie Seely (photo below).

In 2017, Howard, alongside Jessi Colter, appeared on Jeannie Seely's album Written in Song, singing on the track "We're Still Hangin' in There, Ain't We Jessi?". Now in her late 80s, Howard seldom performs live, and one of her appearances was a tribute show to Jean Shepard in 2016 which she specifically came out of retirement to honor Shepard.

Howard was interviewed for, and briefly appears in, Ken Burns' 2017 documentary about the Vietnam War. In it, she recalls one day when a group of antiwar protesters came to her house to invite her to participate in a rally against the Vietnam War. She told them that her son died in Vietnam in part for the right to demonstrate for such causes, but refused their invitation and warned them that "if you ever ring my doorbell again, I'll blow your damned head off with a .357 Magnum." She re-appeared, telling this same story, in Burns' 2019 miniseries about country music.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Jan Howard among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

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