Archive for March, 2008
Monday, March 31st, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#88
Marijohn Wilkin
Much like Jeanne Pruett a few years later, Marijohn Wilkin became a successful female songwriter during the days when male domination was near-complete. Cindy Walker and Felice Bryant had found significant success before Wilkin hit town, largely inspired by the latter’s work. Before she broke ground as a female songwriter, she had earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English, graduating in 1941. She went on to become a school teacher, but she had caught the music bug in college, playing in a cowboy band on campus at Baylor University in Texas.
Seeing the success that Bryant was having in Nashville, Wilkin took the leap and moved to Music City in 1958. She soon was playing at a piano-bar, and earned a low-paying publishing gig that would prove quite prosperous once artists heard her work. The very same year, she found takers for two songs that would become country music standards.
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Sunday, March 30th, 2008
Asked how she feels about her newfound stardom, and the difficulties that come along with it, Taylor Swift told Billboard :
Balancing all this is not hard. I mean what do I have to complain about? I have the best time in the world. I’m so lucky. When I go out in public and I go to a mall, yeah it’s a lot different than it was two years ago, but it’s a beautiful kind of different. It’s the kind of different that I’ve wanted my entire life. I’m a strong believer that if you work your entire life for something, and you work so hard and you want this one thing so much, you should never complain once you get it.
Good for her. That used to be the country music norm, but it sounds refreshing when compared to the attitude a massively successful act like Rascal Flatts has because they don’t win awards, when they should be being thankful for all of the success they’ve had. It’s nice to see a young girl who’s on top right now has perspective on how lucky she is.
Friday, March 28th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#89
Jeanne Pruett
Grand Ole Opry legend Jeanne Pruett is often dismissed as a one-hit wonder, despite charting several top ten hits. Such is often the case when an artist records a monster song. Just like Jeannie C. Riley will always be “Harper Valley P.T.A.” and Lynn Anderson will always be “Rose Garden,” despite numerous other hits to their credit, Jeanne Pruett will forever be “Satin Sheets.” But as vital a record as that 1973 single was, Pruett’s legacy is longer than just that hit and those that followed. She’s one of the first female country artists in history to start as a songwriter first, gaining credibility with her pen more than a decade before her voice was center stage.Born Norma Jean Bowman in 1937, she was a teenager when she married her husband, Jack Pruett. He was a guitarist looking for work in country music, so the pair moved to Nashville in 1956. While her husband would eventually end up playing guitar for Marty Robbins, Pruett became the legend’s secretary. Soon, she was writing more than just memos, as she established herself as a top-rate songwriter. Female songwriters were hard to come by in those days, but Pruett found success, including writing a top fifteen for her boss, “Count Me Out,” in 1966.
The sixties found Pruett scoring songwriting cuts but finding little success as a recording artist. Even once she signed with Decca and began to chart in the early seventies, radio didn’t bite, but other artists did. Conway Twitty covered her first chart hit, “Hold On to My Unchanging Love,” and Marty Robbins took her second, “Hold Me”, into to the top ten, a mere year after Pruett’s original had stopped at #34.
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Thursday, March 27th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#90
Miranda Lambert
Emerging in era of country music noticeably short on compelling new female artists, Miranda Lambert quickly established herself as one of those rare acts that appeals to both mainstream country music fans and the alternative and American crowds that usually shun mass-market Nashville music.
Not bad for a woman who got her first big break on the much-maligned Nashville Star talent show. Lambert came in third during the inaugural 2003 season of that reality show, but even though she was only nineteen years old then, she’d already been actively pursuing a country music career for the past few years, fronting her own country band in high school and releasing a self-titled (and self-financed) independent CD in 2001.
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Thursday, March 27th, 2008
Eric Church returns with the first single from his upcoming sophomore album, and it’s a classic country storyline. The poor boy competing with the rich boy for a woman’s affections. He doesn’t have much confidence that she’s gonna go for the poor man’s roses over the rich man’s gold, so to speak, but he’s pretty sure that his hook-baiting and goodnight kisses should put him over the edge.
Like with his earlier singles, Church’s combination of self-deprecation and easy charm make a good song into a great record. The production pops, and he sings it confidently without spilling over in to cockiness. He remains one of the genre’s most promising new artists.
Grade: B+
Listen: His Kind of Money (My Kind of Love)
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#91
Roba Stanley
It’s a historical fact that is taken for granted. Women in country music were as limited in expressing their liberation in song as they were in real life. There’s some truth to that, as evidenced by many of the records released as the women’s rights movement was in full swing.
But the first woman to ever record a country record on her own sang a song with a refrain that would make a feminist of any era proud:
Single life is the life for me, single life is lovely
I am single and no man’s wife, and no man shall control me
Roba Stanley was only fourteen years old when she first went into a recording studio and sang, but she was already a music veteran. Her father, Rob Stanley, had been a traveling country musician for decades, and in his later years, he had Roba perform with him. Performing as The Stanleys, they garnered exposure on WSB radio, which led to an offer to record in 1924.
She would later be dubbed “America’s first country sweetheart” because she was the first woman in history to record solo country songs. Her first session yielded “Devilish Mary”, a saucy number about a just-married woman who responds to a pushy husband by hitting him upside the head with a shovel.
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Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
While country music is widely known for its drinkin’, Cheatin’ and religious songs, love songs have a highly prominent place in the genre as well. In fact, I argue that country music is the home of the best love songs of all time.
What got me thinking about this topic is that Bill and I celebrate our 4-year anniversary today! I realize that it’s completely self indulgent, but I’d like to know your favorite country love songs.
Some of mine are:
- Kathy Mattea, “Where’ve You Been?”
- Martina McBride, “All The Things We’ve Never Done”
- Randy Travis, “Forever And Ever Amen” & “Deeper Than The Holler”
- Vince Gill, “Look At Us”
- Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash, “It Takes One To Know Me”
- John Denver, “Annie’s Song” (I may like John Berry’s version even better)
- Mary Chapin Carpenter, “Grow Old With Me”
- Josh Turner, “Angels Fall Sometimes”
- George Strait, “Any Old Love Won’t Do”
Of course, that’s just the beginning of my list to get the conversation started.
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#92
Gretchen Peters
There was a brief period in the mid-nineties where it seemed like the women in country music had seized control over the genre, artistically and commercially. When women swept all of the major categories at the 1995 CMA Awards, a songwriter named Gretchen Peters collected Song of the Year. It was only the second time that a woman had won that award, and the first time that a woman won for a song that she hadn’t recorded herself. But that was hardly the most history-making thing about “Independence Day.”
Peters had arrived in Nashville in 1989, drawn to the expanded interest that country music had been showing to offbeat singer-songwriters like Steve Earle, Nanci Griffith and Lyle Lovett. While she would eventually secure the recording contract that was her original goal, it wouldn’t be until 1996, after she had established herself as one of the genre’s most credible songwriters.
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Monday, March 24th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#93
Sweethearts of the Rodeo
When you name your duo after a seminal country-rock album, you’re making a big statement about both where you came from and where you’re planning to go with your music. The Byrds released the classic Sweetheart of the Rodeo in 1969, when their fellow Californians Janis & Kristine Oliver were in middle school. After many years of performing as the Oliver Sisters, they settled on the name Sweethearts of the Rodeo.
With tight sibling harmonies that rivaled fellow female family acts of their time, like The Judds and the Forester Sisters, Sweethearts of the Rodeo carved out a cool little niche on country radio during the latter half of the eighties. With elements of both rockabilly and bluegrass in their musical style, they strung together seven consecutive top ten hits, starting with the Foster & Lloyd composition “Since I Found You” in 1986.
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Monday, March 24th, 2008
Okay, we get it. Kenny Chesney is too conflicted and free spirited to settle down. Just in case we ever doubted his commitment to staying in the singles club, here’s one more song to convince us.
He gives this woman many reasons to show that he’s “better as a memory than [her] man.” The list of reasons or excuses simply seems to boil down to the possibility that he either consciously or subconsciously sabotages his relationships. The fact that he hasn’t been able to settle down is not the problem with this song; that’s his right and does not make him less of a person. The issue with these lyrics is that he unsuccessfully attempts to seem deep or complicated, which, instead, just makes him seem arrogant and self-tortured.
While the lyrics may be somewhat self-indulgent, the production is nice and Kenny’s vocals are spot on. These important factors will make this song easy to listen to.
Written by Scooter Carusoe & Lady Goodman
Grade: B-
Listen: Better as a Memory
Buy: Better as a Memory
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