Later Career and Life
Spears continued releasing albums in the United States into the 1980s. By the mid 1980s, her overall success in the United States had tapered off. However, she retained a following in the UK, and remained a popular live performer there. Spears recorded a number of albums for the British market that had limited or even no release in the US. This level of fame in the UK was summed up by the magazine, Country Music People, during the 1990s when their article described Spears as "The Queen Mother of country music."
In 1990, Broadland Records produced an ill fated experimental album where 'wannabe performers' could, for a fee, record the second part of the duet. She told BBC Radio Merseyside personality, Spencer Leigh, in 1994, "The album never got finished and I don't know what happened to the money. It's pathetic and I'm very disappointed."
She recovered from triple bypass surgery in 1993. She continued to tour for more than 16 years.
In 2005, Spears released the album I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. Spears toured with the Irish country singer, Philomena Begley, in 2011.
In later years, she made her home in Vidor, Texas, near her hometown of Beaumont, where she died of cancer on December 14, 2011, at age 74.
Read more about this topic: Billie Jo Spears
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