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.

Country music icon Jeannie Seely, known as “Miss Country Soul,” has died at 85 following months of serious health issues.

"We had many wonderful laughs together, cried over certain things together and she will be missed," the musician's friend Dolly Parton wrote in a statement.