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A Poll Of Many Colors
Mar. 19th, 2023 02:53 pmILM just ran a Poll Of Many Colors, women in country music: best or favorite artists, albums, tracks. I only did tracks. Poll results will probably start next Friday, possibly with a new thread.
This is what I wrote, with a few tweaks, and I've added embeds. The person making the Spotify playlist was kind enough to post what he could:
[A little while later]
[A little while later]
[18 hours later]
[Two days later]
( My top 30 songs )
This is what I wrote, with a few tweaks, and I've added embeds. The person making the Spotify playlist was kind enough to post what he could:
I'm late to the party so doubt you'll have time to put any of these into your playlist, and LOL at trying to find them on Spotify anyway.
To call my knowledge of country music "spotty" is to overestimate the number and size of the spots and to underestimate the vast amount of blank space. But last June when Tom's Peoples Pop Polls were doing 1966, I did a kind of dive for country music, especially looking for country women to toss into the Suggestions Box.
In the meantime here's one from 1985:
Lacy J. Dalton - Over You
Deep burnt voice, makes me want to hear more.
[A little while later]
Another from 1985:
Louise Mandrell - Devil In A Fast Car
Sounds more Flashdance than her sister.
[A little while later]
From hither and yon. Yes, I can find a way to put hip-hop into a country poll!
The Forester Sisters - Crazy Heart
More heart than crazy, but the guitars mince some garlic over in the cutlery section of Bed Bath & Beyond.
Faith Hill - One
Keep forgetting how good Faith Hill is. This is quiet storm, basically, that doesn't forget to get a little noisy.
Bonnie Guitar - Hello, Hello Please Answer The Phone
Question, what genre has the most telephone songs? Think country's a contender.
Norma Jean - The Gambler And The Lady
You're either on the boat or you're off the boat.
Haley Georgia - Becky
"Becky" is blissful and buoyant and one of the great songs of 2017 and when all the online creeps kept telling Haley it was shit she must've listened, 'cause it's been wiped off the Internet except for this snippet.
LeAnn Rimes - Family
Saw a live clip of this where LeAnn says "And just admit you have a dysfunctional family" and she raises her hand really high.
LeAnn Rimes - No Way Out
And she didn't know a way out.
Taylor Swift - You're Not Sorry
Taylor Swift - Lose Yourself
SHeDAISY - Lucky 4 You
Carrie Underwood - Jesus Take The Wheel
Allison Moorer - Dancing Barefoot
Sarah Buxton - Space
Laura Bell Bundy - Giddy On Up
Sarah Darling - Whenever It Rains
Cassadee Pope - Wasting All These Tears
[18 hours later]
Most of the cows have left the barn already, but here's 1966. Among my surprises and discoveries when diving into '66 was how much country was still wrestling with rock 'n' roll and, for the women, wrestling with the girl group sound. For instance, Dolly Parton's "Don't Drop Out," produced by Ray Stevens, was going for a Spector/Shadow Morton/Shangri-Las sound. This is while, out on the pop charts, the girl groups were either disappearing or – in the case of the Supremes and the Marvelettes – morphing into mid '60s soul.
Of course, the country acts were not trying to absorb or meld with the (barely yet named) "rock" genre. Lots of country acts covered "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'," but they got no closer.
One happy surprise, though, was hearing Bonnie Guitar and Margaret Whiting veer towards the art-pop of Petula Clark, say, or Burt Bacharach. Bonnie Guitar (see upthread) is especially interesting – I'd never heard her, but she's terrific. She sounded as at-home on Bacharach type stuff as on Carter Family type stuff, and I could imagine her singing a Bond theme. If you can tell me more about her, I'd be grateful. In the Suggestions Box I was also posting for someone who couldn't figure out how to post, and I ran his choice of Scott Walker's "Mrs. Murphy" right into Bonnie's "Grey Rain Years."
I made a couple of Sixties playlists with a bunch of stuff incl. these and some male-sung country tracks; the second playlist includes the Bonnie-Scott merger. And the first playlist's got my Suggestion Box segue from Norma Jean's "The Shirt" to the Rolling Stones' "Mother's Little Helper." This segue is one of the meanest things I've done in my life.
As much as I love the '66 country tracks, after 10 of them in a row I feel like I'm in an airless closet. If I'd been a kid in a country-listening family, I would've seized on the Stones as a giant bear claw to claw my way out.
In the '00s I wrote that country should change its genre name to "Resentment." For the '60s you could call the genre "What A Drag It Is Getting Old." —An interesting exception was Wanda Jackson; not that she's better than the others, but in going all Jimmie Rodgers she was arriving like a breeze of air and space.
In my actual 1966 – a mostly unhappy year for me – I was trapped in a room not with country but with the Rolling Stones. But since the Stones sounded like they were trying to claw their way out of themselves, I was able to ride with them.
To sum up, though, I'm impressed at the extent that country '66 was willing to engage with other people's present.
Jody Miller - I Remember Mama
Former folkie who foreshadows Emmy Lou/Ronstadt sogginess, which is actually perfect for the big fat sentiments of the song.
Jan Howard - You Really Know
This track's in the country and girl-group zone: her voice can wail, but's got a whip.
Connie Smith - Same As Mine
Excuse me, you've got the wrong house.
Margaret Whiting - The Wheel Of Hurt
Brings formidable style to the sobbing bucket.
Patti Page - Custody
The emptiest house in the world.
Norma Jean - The Shirt
What a drag it is getting old.
Bonnie Guitar - Grey Rain Years
Deep grey voice but with mirth playing around the edges.
Jan Howard - Bad Seed
Traveling the more conventional country track, Jan is just as warm and dangerous as on the rock 'n' roll side; and that harpsichord might actually, after all, be a nod to the shiny new stuff over on the pop charts.
Wanda Jackson - Tuck Away My Lonesome Blues
Loretta Lynn - Saint To A Sinner
Wasn't God who made honky tonk angels.
Interesting thing about Jody Miller: I read in Wikip that in the early '60s she would appear on a television folk show hosted by Tom Paxton. In my folkie days I'd got an album I liked by Paxton, Ramblin' Boy. A few years later, in my rock nihilism days,* I read an old Sing Out! article circa 1965 called "Folk Rot" by Tom Paxton, a savage denunciation (iirc) of the new electric rock 'n' roll direction by erstwhile folk heroes like Bob Dylan. Beginning summer vacation of '71 I left my Sing Out!s on a friend's porch with a note lending them to his older brother, who was learning guitar (the mags had lyrics and chords). Neither the friend nor the brother ever saw them. I suspect a parental intervention, though maybe a dog ate them. Anyway, when Clark McGregor put together his anthology of old commentary about Dylan, Paxton refused to let him reprint "Folk Rot." So I haven't seen it since, but I remember it ending with Paxton quoting from and sneering at a crossover chart hit, "Home Of The Brave": "Home of the brave, land of the free, why won't you let him be what he wants to be." By Jody Miller. Maybe Paxton felt betrayed.
*which haven't ended, by the way; but neither have my folkie days.
[Two days later]
Got my ballot in, tracks only, with maybe an hour-and-a-half to spare. While my number 30, "Suds In The Bucket," is a rockin' little record, it's surely not the 30th best woman-sung country song of all time, just the 30th best that I, my ignorant self, could think of (while restricting myself to only one song per artist except I invoked The Taylor Swift Exception and gave Taylor two, finally choosing "Should've Said No" over "Lose Yourself" as the second on the grounds of better (in)fidelity).
Only eight that I "nominated" i.e. linked above actually made my list; voted a different LeAnn Rimes ("Blue") and a different Sarah Buxton ("Stupid Boy"). My guess is my ballot's the only one with Cassadee Pope and Daveigh Chase. Never saw Big Love but from what I remember people telling me, Chase played either a screwed-up character or a character in a screwed-up situation; anyway, her "Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A." adds a grabbing passion to the song's supposedly staid and comfy happiness. I have no memory whatsoever of Cassadee Pope's "Wasting All These Tears" prior to three days ago except I must've heard it when it came out 'cause it made my 2013 Nashville Scene ballot. Is an angry self-pitying wailer that you'd think'd want an Avril Lavigne or an Amy Lee to drive it through the wall, but Pope's thin reeds manage to do just fine.
As you may have figured, I'd no trouble voting "country" songs that sound like they're invading or being infected by another genre.
( My top 30 songs )
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