POLL of Many Colors - ILM Artists Poll #117 - Women of Country Music

I’m not an arbiter of what you can or can’t vote for!

"I Will Always Love You" (Dolly's version) is totally a country song. "Here You Come Again" is kinda Burt Bacharach-y.

I will reiterate that if you want to vote for something, go for it. I'm keeping the spreadsheet updated with anything that's mentioned in the thread or voted for, so if you see it in there, someone else may be voting for it! "I Will Always Love You" will likely be on my ballot :)

Porter Wagoner had a great duet album with Skeeter Davis too.

Skeeter Davis will be high on my personal list. I did a deep dive on her stuff a few years back and was pleasantly surprised at how many great albums she had in the 60s. Will need to spend some time figuring out which songs//albums I’ll vote for.

speaking of skeeter, the Davis Sisters - "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know" is one of THE great singles of country music, by anyone.

Good call, and will add Rock A Bye Boogie to the list, too

Not sure how people feel about early rock/rockabilly more generally but Wanda Jackson's "I Gotta Know," which shifts back and forth between classic honky tonk and 50s rock n roll, is an old favorite.

My brief tenure in a rockabilly band introduced me to the lovely Sticks & Stones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYr8AUZoIMU

The way Wanda's voice gets that growly breakup is fucking amazeballs. She could bring sweetness as well, as I'm sure, but that distorted sound is... special.

Love Wanda. And as essential as her rockabilly stuff is, her more trad country of the 60s and into the 70s is really great too.

Another one I haven't seen mentioned yet - Connie Smith. "Once a Day" is all-time.

My overall bias in country is toward loads of stuff from 60s and a good amount from 50s and 70s. Then there is a huge drought in the 80s and most of the 90s and 10s, with exception of the alt country trends of the late 90s/00s. Then it comes back fairly strong in the last 5-10 years. That's true of the genre overall but it's exceptionally apparent when I narrow down to women only. Looking at my collection you'd think Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch and Neko Case were the only women doing anything worthwhile in the genre for like 15 years. Ugh. Looking forward to the results of this poll to fill in massive knowledge gaps. And apologies in advance for skewing the results at all.

ha my perception is that the 00s were a golden age

yep

I'm not familiar with careers like Patty Griffin, Kathy Mattea, etc.

i think a lot of the country from the 00s was maybe overlooked by me a bit, w/the most vocal support for country on this board at the time was for big and rich, maybe gretchen wilson, some others...none of which really appealed to me, to be nice about it.

some of the alt-country stuff worked as a gateway drug (freakwater, neko case) as well as some of the classic sounds, but what got me hooked more was probably kathleen edwards and sara evans, then the pistol annies, ashley monroe solo, etc...

Then there is a huge drought in the 80s and most of the 90s and 10

That should read 00s, not 10s.

Keyes, which artists do you have in mind when you say that? I'm sure it's true. It's only in the last few years that I've really been trying to catch up on so much of the genre that I missed.

a lot of the artists mentioned in this thread, especially Lee Ann Womack, Sunny Sweeney, Miranda Lambert, Sugarland, etc. Along with male artists like Eric Church, Gary Allan, Jamey Johnson, and Alan Jackson's "Like Red From a Rose" one of my favorite albums ever.

Seconding my affection for Like Red from a Rose

I liked Kellie Pickler's 2012 album a lot and it holds up.

Yeah for me there was a lot going on from 1998 onward, because I got into a huge amount of folk-adjacent country.

Say, between Other Voices, Other Rooms and Red Dirt Girl.

Then came Van Lear Rose and the prominence of duderiffic alt-country like Whiskeytown, Ryan Adams, Jason Isbell, etc.

Before that, my favorite country music would prolly have been, like, Hal Ketchum or Rodney Crowell.

early '90s reminder: lorrie morgan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr3GcGGu4dQ

@Alfred re: Patty Griffin, she has been touring and collaborating with Emmylou Harris for ages -- see: "Mary," a song Lucinda Williams has said she wished she wrote, but also don't miss "Truth #2," which The Chicks play live and will likely make my ballot. The Chicks named Fly after closing track "Let Him Fly," which was on Patty's first album, the mostly acoustic Living With Ghosts. "Top of the World," which closes Home, is a tune from Patty's Impossible Dream, one of my favorite albums. That one also has "When It Don't Come Easy," which LeAnn Rimes chose for her first dance (ditto), and Emily Scott Robinson covered beautifully last year. Would recommend those two albums for starters. Also noteworthy: Miranda's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend contains a Patty cover ("Getting Ready").

(Crowell, yeah, and he's been pretty consistent for quite a while, though a bit too woolgathering lyrically at times, always a good producer, of self and others.)
Cosign w Keyes---I only started keeping up with country in the late 90s and early 00s, because Chuck Eddy was paying me to, and I got spoiled, thought it was gonna keep being like that re frequently amazing country pop, at least for an album or two (Montgomery Gentry!), but did have the rise of those artists cited by Keyes, also the great decade of Justin Townes Earle, plus other hardy indie country.

Griffin's "Top of the World" made another top Chicks track.

Oh yeah but if you want some heavy shit here it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VPpAZ9_qAw

like, I remember hearing this on the radio and wondering how many listeners grasped how fucking heavy it was

Ditto this offering from Beth Nielsen Chapman ("Sand and Water"), who had every reason to go there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M_HYg2S870

Like, I'm pretty sure we all love music about drinking and fucking and being silly and having fun. Like, those are three of my five favorite things. But listen to those songs. Please.

Sean Hannity used to use Independence Day as the theme song of his radio show, which seemed like a lot of not getting it

"Independence Day" is one of the greatest singles of the '90s in any genre.

She came close to matching it only a couple times. "Love's the Only House" for instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzM_lxnzi64

Sean Hannity used to use Independence Day as the theme song of his radio show, which seemed like a lot of not getting it

― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Wednesday, March 1, 2023 12:30 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I did not know this. Amazing.

"Independence Day" was problematic and Hannity-vulnerable for being simultaneously female agency x gun solution---obviously sometimes it comes to that in real life, but in country music esp. ending song w celebration, even if heavy sound, eliding the aftermath, like maybe legal and certainly what it feels like to have done that as well as what led up to it, and what now, in life, longterm: could be fascinating for follow-through on that but this ain't that---

It's a graver ancestor of Gretchen Wilson and Miranda Lambert's gunpowder-and-lead stuff.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/independence-day-martina-mcbride-real-meaning-855248/

So many fantastic songs being shared ITT. It's going to be super hard to narrow down the ballot to just 30 tracks. Could easily fill up the ballot with tracks from Lucinda, Gillian Welch, Miranda Lambert, and Emmylou ... Could we increase the tracks ballot to 50 tracks??

Like leaving it vulnerable to such oh just let my people have guns (husband too), rather than say she escapes in car, looking in rear view rather than big boom solution---would seem like better way to go---

xps

ok absolutely not endorsing sean fucking hannity here but

if these songs don't move you, you are made of some unmoveable substance and I am not sure I can relate to you

They do move me, but

ok dow, you do you.

I am currently in a headspace where I want to be moved, in the way that these songs move me. But I also know I need to calibrate the dosage. Not enough and my life is bland. Too much, and I want to just curl up with the feelz.

Getting the right balance is tricky.

That should read 00s, not 10s.

Keyes, which artists do you have in mind when you say that? I'm sure it's true. It's only in the last few years that I've really been trying to catch up on so much of the genre that I missed.

― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Wednesday, March 1, 2023 11:45 AM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I really considered the late 90s/00s a golden era. There was so much good alt-country each year with Uncle Tupelo/Wilco, Drive-By Truckers/Jason Isbell, Ryan Adams/Whiskeytown, Old 97s, Lydia Loveless, JTE, Neko Case, Waco Bros, Bloodshot in general... and the emergence of The Chicks, Miranda Lambert, Taylor Swift. Also had legends like Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, et al. putting out some of the finest stuff of their long careers.

So many fantastic songs being shared ITT. It's going to be super hard to narrow down the ballot to just 30 tracks. Could easily fill up the ballot with tracks from Lucinda, Gillian Welch, Miranda Lambert, and Emmylou ... Could we increase the tracks ballot to 50 tracks??

― that's not my post, Wednesday, March 1, 2023 12:37 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Feel free to post your top 50 but I'd like to keep it to 30 for the sake of keeping this manageable in a relatively short amount of time. Hoping you all submit ballots!

xpost Golden Era ^OTM

A gem from the early 00s. This is the song I immediately hear in my head when I think of Neko Case

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScT9eo5cljk

Where does this mean world cast its cold eye
Who's left to suffer long about you
Does your soul cast about like an old paper bag
Past empty lots and early graves
Those like you who lost their way
Murdered on the interstate
While the red bells rang like thunder

Another shout-out to Indexed for running this. So much fabulous material here; regardless of the poll results it's an enjoyable exercise.

Xpost Catherine Irwin. She sang most of the leads in Freakwater. If you like her voice and approach, highly recommend Freakwater’s Springtime lp which I mentioned upthread.

― that's not my post, Tuesday, February 28, 2023 10:11 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

So this is pushing every button I have. Thank you for the recommendation!

Also should have mentioned Songs:Ohia/Magnolia Electric Co./Jason Molina in my 'golden era' post.

awesome, very into this. I think most of those 50M listen's for Jo Dee Messina that were mentioned up thread are my wife and I listening to Alright & Bye-Bye over and over again. Will definitely vote independence day. Also Shania for sure, No One Needs To Know is sometimes my favourite song ever.

some other tracks worth voting for...

Love Is - Emmylou Harris
This is better than the Matapedia version that Kate & Anna recorded.

Where No One Stands Alone - Asleep at the Wheel
I assume that when Chris O'Connell signs AATW songs count?

Change of Heart - The Judds
Years - Barbara Mandrell
Queen of Hearts - Juice Newton
Right in Time - Lucinda Williams
Roll Um Easy - Linda Ronstadt
She's In Love With the Boy - Trisha Yearwood
Stuck Like Glue - Sugarland

Does Tennessee Waltz by Patti Page count or is that too pop? I would vote Someday Soon as well, but probably the Judy Collins version even if the Canadian in my feels I should vote Ian & Sylvia.

My Chicks song of choice is Easy Silence
Before He Cheats is a 2000s classic of course, Redneck Woman would get my vote too.

For more modern tracks I would definitely rep for Compass by Lady A, Half Broke Heart that was mentioned upthread, my favourite Maren Morris is Once, Day Drinking by LBT, Tuxedo by Clare Dunn and The Weight of These Wings might just be my favourite overall album by a female country singer ever.

Great post, Will! The late 70s-early 90s is probably where I need to do the most catching up. Added all of your suggestions, everything else mentioned today, and my Emmylou Harris track of choice to the spreadsheet, "Easy from Now on," a Susanna Clark & Carlene Carter tune that Lambert also did a killer cover of on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I considered "Jordan," but it's maybe too indebted to Johnny Cash and will be voting for Roses in the Snow anyhow.

re

she escapes in car, looking in rear view

Chely Wright's note to self, ca. 1997:

And I had to break your heart to make you see
That he's the one who will be missing you
And you'll only miss the man
That you wanted him to be
Shut up and drive
Don't look in the mirror
Turn the radio on
Get out of here
Shut up and drive
Shut up and drive
Shut up and drive

Don't know her albums from that era, but 2010 Crowell-produced Lifted Off The Ground brought a new country pop btw-gay mainstream; 2016's Joe Henry-producedI Am The Rain takes introspection further, in a good way, w some Crowell, Emmylou, Milk Carton Kids backing vox.

More heavy tunes …

Iris DeMent - No Time To Cry (her voice kills me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfyqbkuV_e8

Reba McEntire - Fancy (mentioned upthread. It’s a Bobbie Gentry song. Also will fill in blind spots for 80s country)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zplc4Ienkws

One of Merle Haggard's best late performances is his DeMent cover.