Lynn Rene Anderson

 Lynn Rene Anderson (September 26, 1947 – July 30, 2015)

She was a country music singer known for a string of hits from the late 1960s to the 1980s, most notably her worldwide mega-hit "Rose Garden" (1970). Anderson's crossover appeal and regular exposure on national television helped her become one of country music's first female superstars in the early 1970s; taking the genre to venues around the world that previously had not been receptive. In 1970, she became the first female country star to appear on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. In addition to being named "Top Female Vocalist" by the Academy of Country Music (ACM) twice and "Female Vocalist of the Year" by the Country Music Association (CMA), she also won a Grammy Award (earning seven nominations), People's Choice Award and an American Music Award (AMA). Record World, one of three major industry trade magazines at the time (Billboard and Cashbox the other two), named Lynn Anderson 'Artist of the Decade' for 1970-80. Additionally, Anderson was the first female country artist to win the American Music Award (1974), as well as the first to headline and sellout Madison Square Garden that same year.

She continued to record and remained a popular concert draw until her death, regularly headlining major casino showrooms, performing arts centers, and theaters. Anderson was married to Grammy Award-winning songwriter Glenn Sutton from 1968 to 1977. They had one child together, Lisa, born in 1970. In 1978, she married Louisiana oil tycoon Harold "Spook" Stream III, with whom she had two children. Stream and Anderson divorced in 1982. Anderson had a self-professed issue with alcohol and had a list of run-ins with the law, including a DUI and arrest for shoplifting. Anderson died on July 30, 2015 at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee from a heart attack at the age of 67. She is interred at Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Nashville near her mother and father.