Jan Howard (March 13, 1929 – March 28, 2020) was born Lula Grace Johnson and was an American country music singer, songwriter, and author.
Born in Missouri, Jan Howard had her first hit in 1960 with The One You Slip Around With, and had a string of others including Evil on Your Mind and Bad Seed.
As a singer, she placed 30 singles on the Billboard country songs chart, was a Grand Ole Opry member and was nominated for several major awards.
Jan Howard had a No. 1 country hit For Loving You with Bill Anderson and wrote hits for others like Kitty Wells’ It’s All Over But the Crying. But she had her biggest success as a duo with Anderson, including I Know You’re Married, Someday We’ll Be Together and For Loving You, which spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard country chart in 1967.
She also wrote for others, including Wells’ song and Connie Smith’s hit I Never Once Stopped Loving You.
Her most personal song was perhaps My Son, which she wrote as plea for her son Jimmy’s safe return from the Vietnam war. He was killed two weeks after its release in 1968. Another son later killed himself.
Jan Howard documented her triumphs and struggles in the 1987 autobiography Sunshine and Shadow.
Since the 1990s, Howard slowed down her singing career and while working occasionally, she mainly did performances as part of the Grand Ole Opry cast.
In the 2000’s Jan Howard was inducted into the Missouri Country Music Hall of Fame and released a boxed set of her recorded material.
She has since appeared on many albums by other artists, including recording a duet with Bill Anderson and Vince Gill for Anderson’s studio release, Whisperin’ Bluegrass in 2017 and in 2019, she celebrated her 90th birthday at the Opry, making her the show’s oldest living member
Jan Howard died in Gallatin, Tennessee on March 28, 2020, fifteen days after her 91st birthday.
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