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

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 intevention, 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.

Turned in a ballot and suddenly remembered a favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRpScJzx41U

Would probably leave out the song (I topped out at 30), but would squeeze the album (Rabbit Fur Coat) in between Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball and Linda Ronstadt's Heart Like a Wheel.

I can add it for you. Thanks for voting!

LAST DAY TO VOTE!

Nearly two-hundred artists have been named or voted for. Not too shabby.

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

Can I add this one to my unweighted ballot? I totally forgot it.
Patsy Cline - She's Got You

Done.

Also, Alfred, you voted for the same song twice if you want to add another track to your list.

I've been procrastinating. Torn between bolstering the chorus of enthusiasm for acknowledged great stuff, and throwing curveballs of relative obscurity.

Like, it's one thing to be the lone vote for "The Hatfield Side" by Cheri Knight or the Cowboy Junkies' "Oregon Hill." Quite another to make sure that "She's Got You" or "Drunken Angel" gets its due.

Same here, but decided to leave out most of the obvious or much-cited choices, unless it was something I just couldn't resist.
Great comments from Frank, and speaking of mixed feelings about 60s, see upthread what I pasted from Scene ballot comments about reissued The Seely Style, though I damn near put it on the ballot. Also, speaking of Connie Smith, I still need to check out her 60s, but here's what I said about her 2021 (60s-wise) album:

Connie Smith's The Cry of The Heart is named for her definition of and specialty in country music, the kind of relentlessly cyclical treks- on-gilded-splinters-of-the-heart trad, sometimes funereal, that I tend to resist, as seen below in comments on Lucinda's urn ov same (wine-and-lipstick-stained butts incl., OK). Nevertheless, she picks songs about being knowing, struggling with being stuck inside a mobile, turning like a vane of dislocation in layers of strangely familiar, the stranger for it, weather: apologizes to her heart for being about to take another chance on prospect they both know better than; later, "I just don't believe me any more—I wouldn't trust my own eyes, if I saw him walking through the door," and gets to overview, "There are three s-i-i-i-des, to ev-ery sto-ry: his side, her side, and the truth": tricky, could get to truthie, jesting Pilate, sense of futility, reckless, even: interesting cusp—also, that chorus reminds me of "Love Is Strange," including a possible cross-influence with proto-reggae, and my other favorites here also have that out of the box, 60s crossover appeal that her accompanists, mainly Mary Stuart & his Superlatives, are so good at—-another starts with an acoustic country suggestion of "Pinball Wizard"—also "A-l-l-l, The Time" could be Orbison singing Jimmy Webb or himself, likewise omg yall fave is "Here Comes My Baby Back Again," with a kettledrum hook, even, also her voice, now reputedly shy of a few top notes of her 60s-70s commercial heyday, especially mighty and booming from the gut here, w/o overdoing it. This song rec also to Everly Bros., and eerie observational "Jesus Take A Hold" for Mavis (who will be doing some shows w Bonnie Raitt this summer btw). But some of the other, more generically constrained trad country ballads, are ballast, for sure, keeping whole thing bubbling just under my Top Ten.

If I'd done a Singles ballot for this thread, would def. have picked:

"Here Comes My Baby Back Again," with a kettledrum hook, even, also her voice, now reputedly shy of a few top notes of her 60s-70s commercial heyday, especially mighty and booming from the gut here, w/o overdoing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_fX0QWTTx4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLloC8P_-ao

^ I prefer the Karla Bonoff version but this is the more country one

Bobbie Gentry - Delta Sweete needs to be on the list.

I’m hopefully going to get mine in tonight before midnight pst!

voted!

voted.

In with three minutes to spare

Thanks, all -- we are up to 16 ballots. If there's anyone who missed that cutoff that wants to get a ballot in sometime in the next ~5 hours, go for it.

Also, Alfred, you voted for the same song twice if you want to add another track to your list.

― Indexed,

Sorry. Still time?

hey i mistitled an album i voted for. the Whitney Rose should be called Rule 62.

sorry bout that but it was 11:45 pm or so :/

i ultimately voted a little strategically and also threw in personal favorite albums by some artists vs ones that were maybe considered more classic. overall pretty happy w/the list though i'm sure i'll remember someone during the rollout and kick myself.

Sorry. Still time?

― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, March 16, 2023 10:20 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, np

Keep meaning to give a shout to ian for sharing that Kate Wolf song a couple of weeks ago. Had never heard of her before and am hooked.

I've been procrastinating. Torn between bolstering the chorus of enthusiasm for acknowledged great stuff, and throwing curveballs of relative obscurity.

Like, it's one thing to be the lone vote for "The Hatfield Side" by Cheri Knight or the Cowboy Junkies' "Oregon Hill." Quite another to make sure that "She's Got You" or "Drunken Angel" gets its due.

― Minivan Morrison (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, March 15, 2023 10:14 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

You voting?

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 six that I linked/"nominated" 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 threw 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.

Thanks for voting, Frank!

I am done with the Artists tabulation but won't get to Tracks and Albums until tomorrow, so if anyone wants to submit a late ballot for either/both of those, go for it.

And I got your 30th track, Alfred.

Two questions for those who voted:
1. Any preference on order of the roll out? I was thinking Albums / Tracks / Artists.
2. Should I start a new thread, as I believe is custom, for results, or do we want to keep everything in here? Nice to have one thread to come back to in the future, but there's also a ton of youtubes in here that I know are making it awfully slow on my end.

I am somehow unaware of the passage of time, and so did not get round to submitting a ballot, and so of course my opinion counts for nuffin, but I’d be inclined toward Artists/Albums/tracks, as the granularity increases that way & so more surprises/suspense to the end.

1. No preference.
2. No preference. Whatever makes the most sense to you. My CPU is 11 years old so loading can be a problem with all the YT embeds, but they don't embed when I'm logged out so I stay logged out when I read; only log in to post.

Proofreading my text: "want an Avril Lavigne or an Amy Lee to drive it threw the wall" - Avril and Amy must be really strong to throw an entire wall. Anyway, "through."

Whoops, I ran out of time and wasn't able to vote on this, but I'll watch the results with great interest (the results will undoubtedly be better without my ballot anyways, which would have been no more than 1/4 or 1/8-assed instead of the half-assed ballot I promised above)

Anyone who wants to submit an Albums or Tracks ballot before noon CST today (~4 hours), even partial and/or unweighted, is welcome to do so.