Sammi Smith

Born Jewel Faye Smith in Orange County, California, Sammi Smith grew up in Oklahoma and started singing as a child. After recording for Columbia in the late 1960s, she reached national prominence with her version of Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night”, which topped the country chart in 1971 and earned her a Grammy.

She released records on Mega and Elektra in the following decades. She died in 2005, at 61.