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

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.

Any mention of Allison Moorer yet? Here's one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mOdh9-g5l8

"The Hardest Part" was one of my fave albums at the time (2000).

to skeptics of early '90s country I submit

Mary Chapin Carpenter singing "He Thinks He'll Keep Her"
featuring:
Suzy Boggus
Patty Loveless
Pam Tillis
Trisha Yearwood
Kathy Mattea
Emmylou Harris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH2hzModqCk

I just discovered Lari White. She passed away a few years ago. Neo-Traditionalist. Her first album was produced by Rodney Crowell. This video is, uh, pretty insane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K1gknVDPeE

^ I'm such a sucker for uptempo dance hall stuff like this. Per Wikipedia: ""Wild at Heart" subject to controversy due to its music video. Said video was withdrawn from CMT and The Nashville Network after only a month due to protests from mental health organizations." Sadly don't see the album on Spotify but the opening track with Shelby Lynne & Trisha Yearwood is also a total stomper:

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

Any Kasey Chambers fans? 1999's The Captain has a number of quality tunes. My favorite is probably "You Got the Car":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Noc8BSQZF4

The record she did with Shane Nicholson in 2008 Rattlin' Bones is a more even listen, going back to great male/female duet records. Try "Wildflower" for a taste:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30bqMc0LldE

A couple years prior Caitlin Cary of Whiskeytown found a Ryan Adams sound-alike in Thad Cockerell and released one of my favorite country albums of the era, Begonias. Highly recommend it to anyone who likes perfect male/female harmonies and/or the early 00s alt-country sound.

^Two Different Things off Begonias is such a great tune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYvKAYKlsv4

I like Kasey Chambers, and "You Got the Car" is absolutely my favorite. I like that whole album, really. The one after it was pretty good, then I kind of stopped paying attention. I also love "We're All Gonna Die Someday."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_oqQ0evQ0U

I missed La Ronstadt's Canciones de Mi Padre the first time around, but amazed by 2022 Deluxe Edition (the bonus track is "Lagos Azul," casting off at the end of a musical evening for the Sea of Dreams, since bayous ain't blue on this side, unless some kind of spill/dump). Wondering about Latina country inclusions on my ballot---maybe this, something by Eva Ybarra y Los Conjuntos---I'm sure the xpost Mollys knew all about her---Rosie Flores, Tish Hinojosa, Carrie Rodriquez? Did Selena ever do any Tejana country pop?

Pointless digression: for some reason, my mother thought it was important to match dinner music with dinner.

When we had Chinese food she always played the Last Emperor soundtrack. Pasta? Moonstruck.

Whenever we had tacos, she would inevitably put on Cantonese di mi Padre, and I cannot shake those associations to this day.

Fuck autocucumber. Canciones di mi Padre.

Cantonese di mi Padre would work for a Chinese/Mexican fusion record, though. And the resulting moo shu burritos

I’ve got a track list narrowed down to about 80…

I like Kasey Chambers, and "You Got the Car" is absolutely my favorite. I like that whole album, really. The one after it was pretty good, then I kind of stopped paying attention. I also love "We're All Gonna Die Someday."

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Thursday, March 2, 2023 4:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Same. Learned yesterday that she has been quite a force of nature in Australian radio. Per wikipedia:

Five of her twelve studio albums have reached No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart, Barricades & Brickwalls (September 2001), Wayward Angel (May 2004), Carnival (August 2006) Rattlin' Bones (April 2008) and Dragonfly (January 2017). In November 2018 she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and has won an additional fourteen ARIA Music Awards with nine for Best Country Album. Kasey Chambers has most wins with 9 awards from 9 nominations, more than any other artist or band in this category.

I'd only ever really listened to Mountain Soul (a classic) and am getting caught up on the rest of Patty Loveless's catalog. Rather uneven but the hits sure hit.

Wild that we've gotten over 200 posts deep and no one's mentioned Jessi Colter. Her 70s stuff wasn't on streaming for a long time, so she may have slipped from the public consciousness, but it's there now so get hip.

Speaking of Jessi Colter that Sammi Smith record He’s Everywhere that was outlaw adjacent too is really great.

By the way, for those of you who like vinyl, almost all this stuff (60s-80s) can still be had for dirt cheap!

Some albums from the last 5 years that I haven’t seen mentioned. Maybe hard to crack a top 30 for some folks but all worth checking out!

2017 - Natalie Hemby: Puxico (track: Time Honored Tradition)
2019 - Lillie Mae: Other Girls (track: Other Girls)
2020 - Waxahatchee: St Cloud (track: Lilacs)
2021 - Margo Cilker: Pohorylle (track: Tehachapi)
2022 - SG Goodman: Teeth Marks (track: When You Say It)

And while I probably won’t nominate her (very good) albums, I’m considering two tracks from Erin Rae, “Putting on Airs” and “Modern Woman”.

2020 - Waxahatchee: St Cloud (track: Lilacs)

I almost forgot about that album - that will definitely get a vote from me.

Everything Waxahatchee did for the 7-8 years prior to St Cloud was average or just above average but her turn toward country was inspired—easily my favorite album of the 20s so far.

Great picks pgwp. I really love Puxico but the more recent Hemby album wasn't as successful for me, as she tried to make the jump from songwriter to star. I'm considering her for my artists ballot though, given Puxico, The Highwomen, and her incredible catalog of songs (some of my favorites: Lambert's "Fine Tune," "Girls," "Smokin & Drinkin," and "Ugly Lights"; Jon Pardi's "Heartache Medication"; Kacey Musgraves' "Butterflies," "Velvet Elvis," and "Rainbow"; Kelly Clarkson's "Don't Rush"; Little Big Town's "Pontoon").

Speaking of The Highwomen and more recent records, Maren Morris's HERO is worth a mention. It's big pop hooks and cross-over appeal pair well with Cam's Untamed and Lambert's Platinum.

I’ve been meaning to try Hemby’s second album again, but my first impression was the same as yours - didn’t grab me nearly as much as Puxico. But I discovered both albums at about the same time so I feel like I didn’t really give the second one a fair shake.

Also didn’t realize she wrote “Fine Tune” which is one of my favorite Lambert songs.

Don't think Kelly Willis has been mentioned (!) who has a number of great albums both as a solo artist and with her (now ex?) husband Bruce Robison. Revisiting her self-titled album this morning, and it's great.

Her album "Translated From Love" was very good, as I remember

more albums:

Lydia Loveless- Somewhere Else

― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Monday, February 27, 2023 2:44 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

May sneak onto my ballot

And I never did want you in my way well at least not every day
I never did want you to be mine
Well at least not all the time but
I wanna be on your mind
Well I wanna be on your mind
It feels like I'm gonna die if I can't talk to you
It feel like I'm gonna die only if you don't fill my wound up
But I feel like I'm gonna die either way
Feel like I'm gonna die either way
Feel like I'm gonna die
Whyyyyyyyyyyy

I like Kelly Willis, actually just listened to What I Deserve a month or two ago.

so i am trying to get my vote in before i leave on holiday, how are we handling the two iterations of the Carter Family/Mother Maybelle and the Sisters in the artist vote? Two separate groups?

Good question. I'm inclined to combine the Carter Family votes, but if anyone objects, let me know. There are others like The Judds/Wynonna where I'm torn. You can refer to the spreadsheet to see how I'm grouping things as of now:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wZG8IgHCDheS-83yJpnIQC0pu-cdciuZ9suKwPs0Q4E/edit#gid=0

alright! my vote is in, excited to see the results I should be back right when things start to roll out!

I've had King's Record Shop on vinyl for years so had never heard the bonus tracks before today when I played it on Spotify. "707" is a jam!

Looked and not only has the record never been polled here, Cash doesn't even have a dedicated thread? Hopefully this or the results thread can give us a place to discuss in years to come.

We have had four votes thus far, and you all have just over one week to get 'em in. Hoping to see ballots from all those who've chimed in here...

She does!

Rosanne Cash, classic or dud?

Best Song on Rosanne Cash's Hits 1981-1989

Rosanne Cash - The River & the Thread

A+ spelling on my part...thanks, Alfred!

We have had four votes thus far, and you all have just over one week to get 'em in.

― Indexed, Tuesday, March 7, 2023 5:43 PM

I keep forgetting there's an actual vote taking place lol

ha, no worries, Indexed! I've often added an e.

There are five more Jessi Colter tracks, incl. two duets w Waylon, added to the excellent 20th Anniversary Edition of Wanted! The Outlaws, released in 1996.
2006 brought her also **excellent** Out of the Ashes, and 2017 delivered The Psalms, featuring Lenny Kaye, and sounding like something Patti Smith could get into.

from my Nashville Scene comments on Out of the Ashes:

Comments: Jessi Colter, whose early songs are credited to Margaret
Eddy, from when she was married to Chuck's Uncle Duane, emerged for
me, a little bit in the lemon-scented penumbra of her first and
biggest Jessi hit, "I'm Not Lisa," and much moreso on the expanded
reissue of Wanted: The Outlaws, but was and is still a reserved
journeyman. An artist of poise and potential, a masterful student. Out
Of The Ashes is a startling breakthrough, yet she seems shadowy, not
furtive or coy, just driving her low, rumbling keyboard over high,
rocky desert roads. Just like a woman, or some of 'em, no matter how
much she tells you, there's a fair, if implied, warning, that there's
a lot more where that came from, and a lot of it may stay Over There.
For instance,there's a brief, vividly allusive, yet elusive critique
of a certain outlaw, but in passing, as he's passing. She seems wise
to have waited this long after Waylon's death to record again, to have
gained perspective, but she doesn't dwell on it, except insofar as her
home seems in motion: "His Eye Is On The Sparrow" and "Rainy Day
Women" aren't the best performances, but they both move along at their
and her own chosen speed, and they're both equally emblematic of her
sensibility (And His eye surely must have noticed how they stone ya,
counted by every one of Shooter's drumbeats on the collaboration
originally commissioned by M-M-Mel Gibson for the companion album to
The Passion Of The Christ, and must also have noticed that this
sweatlodge session abjures the exploitational aspects of the stone-Ya
in The Passion, or the similar sequence in On The Waterfront, while
being scarier than either, just because of such unblinking austerity).

Came back to that track in a Shooter feature:

In 2004, Shooter and Jessi co-wrote and recorded a song. "Please Carry Me Home" is about sweating yourself dry of temptation's power, cold turkey, and step by bare step. (Shooter's drums count out the cost, slowly, mercilessly). It's a disturbing song, because it implies the risk of losing desire along with temptation. Not a good idea, because, Smokey Robinson put it, "If you can want, you can care," and then (maybe), as long lost Southern Rockers Hydra put it, you can "care enough to survive." But Shooter and Jessi know this, and hearing is believing: although "Please Carry" is the only track he appears on, it's a fittingly dramatic climax to Jessi's new Out Of The Ashes (Shout! Factory), her first album, except for a couple of kiddie-song sets, in over 20 years. Out Of the Ashes may well be the best country album of 2006, and the rumble and flow of Jessi's gospel-schooled, piano-driven twists and turns may well have provided some of the juice for Shooter's new Electric Rodeo

Thanks for the links, Alfred. Maybe I've underrated KRS?

With all apologies to late Steely Dan and Ms. Ronstadt, King’s Record Shop is the finest studio-rock ever recorded; imagine songs as tough as Fleetwood Mac’s 1975 eponymous album, with playing to match, and Cash channeling Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, and Lindsey Buckingham and you get an idea of her achievement. She’s now a super-sponge, covering John Stewart, John Hiatt (turning “The Way We Make A Broken Heart” into a gauzy homosexual reverie) and Johnny Cash himself. Her singing has never been finer. Note the terrified way in which she whispers “I’m worried about you, I’m worried about me” in the big (country) hit “Runaway Train”; or how her dusky contralto won’t cede an inch to bathos on “I Don’t Have To Crawl.” With DeVito and the Mellencamp guitarist she can now afford (Larry Crane) injecting muscle and grit into Crowell’s tautest arrangements, the likes of “Somewhere, Sometime” and “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” register as intense psychodramas and great pop songs, depending on your tolerance. But “Rosie Strikes Back” wants it both ways: a spousal abuse number qua self-empowerment ode, in which the drums and guitars snap, slap, whip, and whirl in a furious simulation of the beat-up wife’s eventual exit.

http://web.archive.org/web/20140330025039/http://stylusmagazine.com/reviews/rosanne-cash/seven-year-ache-kings-record-shop-interiors.htm

lol at my hyperbole 17 years ago

That's good---and dusky contralto, yeah, the sensuous depth-weight can do a lot when she lets it, like "Tell Heaven" is theme worthy of Douglas Sirk and Frederick's of Hollywood catalogs because she's so deadpan brave and tendah with it---also brings flattens some twee lyrics while bringing out melodic muscle of "Biloxi," like Jesse Winchester's original vocals don't (he's always got that little oh-my-goodness! tremolo).
The List is a good covers album: when she told her father she was thinking of going pro in country, he questioned her, was disturbed by her ignorance, brought her a list of songs, some of which she very eventually recorded.