Archive for May, 2008
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#36
Donna Fargo
She was country music’s sunshine superwoman, singing sprightly love songs and positive thinking anthems. There was a sharp mind behind the big smile, as many of her biggest hits came from her own pen.
She had actually put her warm personality to use in the classroom before pursuing a music career. Though she was a native of North Carolina, she moved west to California for college. She ended up staying there, getting her degree and becoming a high school English teacher. She was already head of the department when she met Stan Silver, who’d become both her manager and husband.
She began playing clubs at night while teaching during the day, and her talent was noticed on the West Coast. She recorded for small labels and released unsuccessful singles, but the ACM, which was still emphasizing artists from the region at their awards, named her Most Promising Female Vocalist in 1970.
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Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
We all know that Taylor Swift has been home schooled while she has been working hard on her country music career. Unfortunately, it seems that she has not been taking her studies too seriously. Apparently, she worked so hard during her junior year that she only had to fulfill two class requirements during her senior year in order to graduate this upcoming June. She told GAC:
“I chose public speaking and musical performance…So I kind of coasted my senior year, as seniors usually do. Musical performance: I was on tour with Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley, so that occurred every night — me singing in front of people happened a lot this year. And public speaking: Every single time I did a radio interview, every single time I got on stage and said, ‘How we doin’, Houston?’ — you know, that’s public speaking. So, senior year’s been pretty good.”
As an educator, I can’t help but feel a bit uneasy about Swift’s dismissive comments regarding her high school education. Moreover, since Swift is really only a kid, it’s even more disturbing that her parents failed to insist that their daughter’s education be more of a priority.
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#37
K.T. Oslin
There had never anyone before in country music like K.T. Oslin when she hit the scene, and there hasn’t been anyone like her since. She instantly redefined what a woman in country music could sing and write about, and by breaking through at the age of 45, she became a voice for her whole generation of women.
Her road from her native Texas to Nashville was a long and winding one. She grew up idolizing Patsy Cline, and her attention turned to folk stars like Joan Baez as she entered junior college. She studied drama while simultaneously developing her musical craft. Before the sixties ended, she had sung in a folk trio with Guy Clark and David Jones. She even worked on an LP in Los Angeles, but the sessions were never released commercially.
While doing a stint in the national touring company of Hello Dolly!, Oslin visited New York City and fell in love with it. She joined the chorus of the Broadway show, and spent the seventies doing small parts in musical theater and recording commercial jingles. She also began focusing on her songwriting, and a friend in the business told her that her songs sounded country. So in 1978, she started shopping her songs around Music City.
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Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#38
LeAnn Rimes
When she burst on to the scene in 1996, she was praised as the second coming of Patsy Cline. Within two years, she was dominating the pop charts. Over the course of her twelve-year career, Rimes has been successfully straddling the fence between pop and country, leaving a mark in both genres as she builds on her already impressive catalog of hits.
All that, and she’s still in her twenties. Rimes was just thirteen when her recording of “Blue” became a nationwide phenomenon. The song had originally been written with Cline in mind, but she died before that was possible. “Blue” was recorded by a handful of artists in the three decades between Bill Mack writing it and Rimes releasing it. The combination of her classic country voice and the novelty of her age proved irresistible to record buyers, and her debut album Blue went spent more than half a year at #1, selling six million copies along the way.
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Monday, May 26th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#39
June Carter Cash
In the shadow of a famous family and an even more famous husband, June Carter Cash has largely been known and defined as a supporting player in legacies larger than her own. But while she did choose to place her own career second to her obligations to The Carter Family and then to Johnny Cash, her work has also been important on its own.
The daughter of Maybelle Carter, she was already performing with her mother and sisters Helen and Anita at the age of ten. From the forties on, she was a primary member of Mother Maybelle & The Carter Sisters. In 1950, the group moved to Nashville and joined the Grand Ole Opry Cast. There, Carter became known for her offbeat comic personality as much as her music, though she did have a solo hit in 1956 with “Juke Box Blues.” During this period, she was married to country star Carl Smith, and together they had a daughter who would become a third generation country star, Carlene Carter.
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Monday, May 26th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#40
Minnie Pearl
She only had one chart hit in her whole career, a spoken-word answer song to Red Sovine’s “Giddyup Go.” But through the sheer force of her character-driven comedy, she became a country music icon all the same, one of the most instantly recognizable faces in the history of country music.
She made her name playing a simple country character, but Sarah Ophelia Colley came from money. She was the youngest of five daughters. Her father was a sawmill owner, but when the Depression hit, his business was hurt. This was just the time that Sarah was coming of age, so instead of attending college, she went to Ward-Belmont finishing school in Nashville, which would later become Belmont University. She was smitten with theater, and after graduation she joined the Sewell Company, touring the south as part of their cast.
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Monday, May 26th, 2008
While there is a long history in country music of dealing with social issues, domestic violence was a topic that was taboo for a very long time. Indeed, when major artists started tackling the issue with pointed material, the songs remained album cuts. It wasn’t until Martina McBride’s “Independence Day” that the issue hit the radio airwaves, where it was deemed so controversial that the song peaked outside the top ten.
Of course, when Garth Brooks had sung about a cheating wife being mowed down with a semi by her jealous husband the previous year, there wasn’t even a hint of controversy, and “Papa Loved Mama” went top five. There still hasn’t been a top ten hit dealing with the issue, though Miranda Lambert is threatening to change that. Here’s a look back at some significant songs dealing with domestic violence.
“The Stairs”, Reba McEntire
from the 1987 album The Last One to Know
It’s been reported that McEntire was moved to record “The Stairs” because of her younger sister being in an abusive marriage. The song tells about a woman who makes up lies to hide the fact that her husband is beating her. After another violent incident, “she’ll have to pretend that she fell down the stairs again.” It’s one of those hidden gems in McEntire’s catalog that doesn’t get nearly enough attention.
“Rosie Strike Back”, Rosanne Cash
from the 1988 album King’s Record Shop
Cash kicked off her last mainstream country album with a song that has her pleading with her friend Rosie to leave her abusive partner: “He throws punches, you bear with him. Don’t take it on you Rosie, don’t be his victim.” In the bridge, she promises that there are people out there who can help her if she lets them. King’s Record Shop was the first album by a female country artist to produce four #1 hits, and it’s fascinating to think about what could’ve happened if CBS had the courage to send this to radio.
“Independence Day”, Martina McBride
from the 1993 album The Way That I Am
In the fifteen years since its release, “Independence Day” has become something of an anthem, a classic country hit that is seen as empowering despite the fatalism of the storyline. While the oft-mentioned claim that the song changed what women in country music could sing about is not entirely accurate, as evidenced by the earlier recordings on the same topic, the impact that this record had is difficult to overstate. Even though radio didn’t fully embrace it, “Independence Day” won honors for both Song and Video of the Year at the CMA Awards.
“A Man’s Home is His Castle”, Faith Hill
from the 1995 album It Matters to Me
Faith Hill is rarely given credit for the challenging material that she regularly records. Unlike the explosive nature of “Independence Day”, her spousal abuse song from 1995 quietly simmers, painting the picture of a woman who is nearing her personal tipping point. “I’m saving up my money, and when I get the nerve I’ll run. But Jim don’t give up easily, so I intend to buy a gun.” The title is reminiscent of the Eddy Arnold classic “Don’t Rob Another Man’s Castle”, but for the character Linda, her home “is a cage.”
“Goodbye Earl”, Dixie Chicks
from the 1999 album Fly
There’s little doubt that Earl got what was coming to him. After all, he willfully disregarded the restraining order and put Wanda in intensive care. Songwriter Dennis Linde touched on a painful reality regarding domestic violence, as restraining orders are often counterproductive, infuriating the abuser and spurring him to further actions.
But what made this song controversial wasn’t so much what was done to Earl, but the gleeful lack of remorse on the part of Mary Ann and Wanda, who poisoned him with the black-eyed peas. Certainly Natalie Maines’ vocal performance was infused with biting vindictiveness, with her musical partners taunting schoolyard “na na na’s” in the background. Even though it was the first Chicks single to miss the top ten, it remains a signature hit.
“Gunpowder & Lead”, Miranda Lambert
from the 2007 album Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
The current single from the ACM Album of the Year has been steadily rising on the chart for twenty weeks, and has now climbed into the top twenty. The publicity from that big award victory might be enough to make this Lambert’s biggest hit to date, and there couldn’t be a more worthy single. The only song on this list sung from the first person perspective, Lambert doesn’t mince words as she prepares for the man who “slapped my face” and “shook me like a rag doll” to return home from jail, looking for round two. She’s waiting with pistol in hand to finish what he started.
Sunday, May 25th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#41
Lucinda Williams
When Time dubbed Lucinda Williams “America’s Greatest Songwriter” in 2001, it wasn’t exactly a news bulletin to those who had followed her career for the previous two decades. She became known as a songwriter first, despite a stunning recorded catalog of her self-written work. But the fledgling Americana format soon became her home, and she returned the favor by becoming its first big star.
She cut her teeth on the folk music of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. A native of Louisiana, she spent the late sixties and early seventies playing the local clubs in New Orleans, before moving to Austin, TX in 1974. There was a burgeoning country-rock scene in that city, and she fit in perfectly. She created a demo tape that caught the attention of Folkways Records, who signed her to a deal. In 1978, she released her first album, Ramblin’, which featured her take on various country, folk and blues standards.
It wasn’t until 1980 that the world was introduced to Lucinda Williams the songwriter on a formal basis. Her second album, Happy Woman Blues, was her first to feature self-written material. It was a polite collection that didn’t push any musical boundaries, but it established her as a singer-songwriter. In what would become a maddening trend for her followers, it would take another eight years before she’d release another album, as a development deal with CBS Records ended without any commercial releases, slowing down her momentum as a recording artist.
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Sunday, May 25th, 2008
100 Greatest Women
#42
Patsy Montana
It’s always tricky to measure an artist’s impact by just looking at the record sales. But any way you slice it, selling a million copies of a record during the height of the Great Depression is an impressive feat, one that the great Patsy Montana achieved back in 1935.
She was born Ruby Blevins and grew up in Hope, Arkansas, future childhood home of President Bill Clinton. As a teenager, she became quite good at playing both guitar and fiddle, and when her older brother was headed to California, she went with him. She studied violin at what is now UCLA, and got involved with the local hillbilly music scene. In 1931, she won a talent contest singing a Jimmy Rodgers yodeling tune, which earned her a spot as the “Yodeling Cowgirl from San Antone” on KTMR radio in Los Angeles.
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Sunday, May 25th, 2008
Well, this is just awesome. He sounds like a young Ronnie Dunn, it’s a classic drinkin’ ’cause my woman left me song, and the hook is so obvious that it’s amazing it hasn’t already been a country hit. “Anything goes,” he justifies, “when everything’s gone.” He wouldn’t be drinking the night away and waking up in a stranger’s bed if his only reason for living hadn’t already walked out on him.
There’s nothing like the thrill of discovery of a new artist that already sounds like a seasoned pro. This is worthy of immediate attention from all fans of traditional country music.
Written by Brice Long & John Wayne Wiggins
Grade: A+
Listen: Anything Goes
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