Jan Howard

Jan Howard, born Lula Grace Johnson on March 13, 1929, in West Plains, Missouri, was an American country music singer, songwriter, and author who also appeared on Broadway. She died on March 28, 2020. The eighth of eleven children born to Linnie and Rolla Johnson, she grew up in a family that relocated frequently across the Midwest, including time in Kansas City, Birch Tree, and Oklahoma City, as her father, a brick mason, sought steady work during the Great Depression. Her mother worked as a nurse's assistant, caring for elderly people in the family home.

Howard's formal schooling was irregular due to the family's constant moves, with many of her schools operating out of single-room buildings that doubled as churches. Her mother separated from her father in 1943 and returned the children to West Plains, where Howard worked as a dishwasher in a local cafe and later at a drugstore. In 1945, at age sixteen, she married Mearle Wood and left high school. The marriage produced three sons born in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the family moved repeatedly across Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and Illinois as Wood pursued teaching positions and other employment. Howard divorced Wood in 1953 following years of financial instability and domestic conflict.

That same year, Howard married Lowell Smith, a United States military sergeant, and relocated with her three sons to military housing. A child born to the couple in 1954 died shortly after birth from complications related to a cerebral hemorrhage. Howard also suffered a miscarriage during the marriage. In 1955, she learned through a letter that Smith's first wife had never filed for divorce, rendering their marriage invalid. The union was annulled, and Howard relocated to Gardena, California, to begin again.

In 1957, Howard met and married country songwriter Harlan Howard. He recognized her vocal ability early in the marriage and arranged for her to record demonstration tapes, which were heard by other country artists and led to a recording contract with Challenge Records. Her first major country hit came in 1960 with the single "The One You Slip Around With." As Harlan Howard's reputation as a songwriter grew, her own recording career expanded. After signing with Decca Records, she achieved some of her greatest commercial success, including the singles "Evil on Your Mind" in 1966 and "My Son" in 1968. A collaboration with Bill Anderson produced the number-one hit "For Loving You" in 1967, and the two continued recording and touring together through the mid-1970s. Over the course of her career, Howard placed thirty singles on the Billboard country songs chart.

Howard's Broadway career included an appearance in 1951 in Bagels and Yox. By 1973, two of her sons had died and she divorced Harlan Howard. During this period she came close to abandoning her career entirely, but continued recording and releasing albums and singles into the 1980s with encouragement from fellow performers. She became a member of the Grand Ole Opry and made regular appearances there throughout her later career. In 1987, she published her autobiography, Sunshine and Shadow, which became a bestseller. She also wrote poems and short stories. Beyond her artistic work, Howard was involved with programs supporting United States military veterans, donated to charitable causes, and spoke at fundraisers. She received nominations for several major awards across her career.