Aug. 2 (UPI) -- Singer Jeannie Seely, who helped transform the image of women in country music, has died. She was 85. Seely died Friday in a hospice in the Nashville area, the Country Music Association said, and her publicist, Don Murray Grubbs told told The Tennessean that she died after an intestinal infection.

She blazed a trail for women in country music with the candor of her songs and her bold fashion sense. She was the first woman to host a segment on the Opry.

We had many wonderful laughs together, cried over certain things together, and she will be missed,” Dolly Parton wrote.