Faren Rachels, a tough young woman from the small town of Sparta, in the state of Georgia, has come to open the show with her new song “Uber Driverâ€. Her community, Sparta, was so small and tight-knit that her graduating high school class consisted on only twelve students. During that time as a teenager she gained an appreciation for the great 90s female artists of country music, crediting Martina McBride, Lee Ann Womack and Trisha Yearwood as her biggest influences. If we get to mix this influence with a dose of southern rock, then you can understand how well this “Uber Driver†sounds.
While still attending college in the university of Georgia in the city of Athens she put together a band to perform cover gigs, combining that with singing in church. Soon after graduating she pursued her dream understanding that her current 9 to 5 job was a dead-end for her, so Faren moved to Nashville never to look back. In November of 2017 she releasend her self titled EP “Faren Rachels†and joined Luke Combs on his fall tour. Her music caught the attention of the magazine Rollin Stone, tagging her as a country artist to follow in 2018.
This song we’ve just listened to talks about the freedom a woman should have just as men have in their life, without having to give explanations to anybody just for being a woman.
In the era of the hashtags “Time’s Up†and “Me tooâ€, women continue to struggle in the world of country music. It could seem like the country music world is dominated by men, at least based on radio airplay. Proof of that is that in early December, Billboard magazine announced that for the first time, its Country Airplay chart listed no women in the Top 20. This issue has made some artists such as Lauren Alaina release a song called “Ladies in the 90sâ€, which celebrates a time when females were plentiful on country radio sending songs up the charts cutting hit after hit after hit. We’re not going to listen to that song in this podcast due to the fact that this is pop song and this is a traditional country show. What we are doing, though, is playing real country voices and fiddle and steel tracks included in EPs and LPs both recently released, and on their way to become all-time classics. It is not the case of the voice we have just listened to, the Australian country singer Jamie O’Neal, who was singing to us the song “Born to Runâ€, a voice quite similar to that of one of the queens of country music, especially in the 90s, Martina McBride. What is quite unusual in country musicians who kind of struck Music City gold as a sought-after songwriter is to find good songs among their third album. She is singing to freedom as a woman, she was born to run, to get ahead of the rest, she didn’t want to be the best, just be someone, to feel the freedom, as she was saying in this track opening her album from 2014 “Eternalâ€, with a flavor to the old 90s style.
Her talent as a songwriter was proven when singers such as Clay Davidson, Ronnie Milsap, LeAnn Rimes or Chely Wright sang her songs. This wasn’t enough for her and she pursued her career to find a spot among the stars, which she finally got hold of. We will say goodbye to Jamie O’Neal listening to her rendition to Loretta Lynn in her “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (with loving on your mind)â€, second song in her album “Eternalâ€, with a style quite similar to that of Terri Clark, the Canadian singer who also struck hard in the 90s.
Loretta Lynn is about as iconic as female country music stars get, and she’s been praised and celebrated for her honest, eloquent and quite often brilliant songwriting about the realities of an adult’s life.
We’ve just listened to her in one of her best-known compositions, "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin", an all-time classic about an angry wife who is fed up with her husband coming home late every night very drunk and wanting to have sex. For new audiences it might be shocking to hear that the song was based on Lynn's personal life. Actually, her husband is known to have been a heavy drinker. The song was the first of many controversial songs sung by Lynn, which also included 1972's "Rated X" and 1975's "The Pill". The song was considered very controversial for the time, but was ultimately quite popular. An album of the same name was released following the song's success, which also rose to the top of the charts.
The producers John Carter Cash (only son of Johnny Cash and June Carter), and Patsy Lynn Russell, daughter of Loretta Lynn, have designed the last album recorded by the giant icon during 2018 to celebrate her talent as a songwriter. Some of the tracks are old classics re-recorded, while six are new tunes, some written in collaboration with Shawn Camp, a great singer and songwriter from the early 2000s. Her voice at the age of 86 is remarkably strong and limber, not very differnt from her heydays in the 60s and 70s, still in full command of her instrument.
We’re going to listen to two more songs, this time two new recordings, the first one is “Ruby’s Stoolâ€, and “The Big Manâ€, showing that she hasn’t abdicated her position as a honky tonk queen.
The acoustic arrangements include some stellar bluegrass pickers such as Sam Bush, Ronnie McCourse and Randy Scruggs. Some editions ago I commented that last year Loretta suffered a stroke that crippled her capacities. Regardless of that, this jewell includes 13 tracks of the best country music one can imagine at this moment to be released by a female artist, and deep into this work one realizes that Lynn hasn’t lost her stride either as a composer or as a vocalist, which makes the presence of the remakes, especially the ones we will say goodbye with to this album, a proof that her flame as a country musician will need more than a stroke to make her decide to retire completely. We’ll say goodbye to this wonderful album with the songs “Darkest Dayâ€, and the song with which she always finished her concerts: “Coal Miner’s Daughterâ€.
Stella Parton’s rendition on Loretta Lynn’s classic “Coal Miner’s Daughterâ€, included in her album from 2010 “American Coalâ€. Stella, Dolly Parton’s sister, has put her sister under fire after seemingly dismissing concerts about the hashtag “Me too†movement and sexual harassment in the country music industry. The country legend, Dolly, said she had experienced sexual harassment during her time in the limelight, but that her experiences likely aren’t as bad as those other women may have had.
The unapollogetically feminine Parton says she relates to feminists, and even provides them a soundtrack and film in “9 to 5â€, but the singer is hesitant to label herself as such because she never saw herself in that way.
Stella Parton also says that she was uncomfortable when Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda criticized President Donald Trump while onstage with Parton at the 2017 Emmy Awards. Dolly commented that she doesn’t like getting up on TV and saying political things. A big reason Parton doesn’t get political is because she’s a smart marketer, admitting that she doesn’t want to allienate anyone in her enormous, diverse fanbase.
Stella also called out Dolly’s pal Jane Fonda, as well as Mery Streep, for allegedly keeping quiet about sexual misconduct in Hollywood.
Just in December 2018, the audiovisual platform Netflix released the coming-of-age comedy film called “Dumplin’â€, an American movie directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Kristin Hahn. It is based on the young audlt novel of the same name, written by Julie Murphy. The flix stars Danielle Mcdonald as Willowdean “Dumplin’†Dickson, Jennifer Aniston as her mother, Rosie Dickson, and Odeya Rush as her best friend, Ellen Dryer.
The singer and actress Dolly Parton doesn’t appear on-screen in the film, but she plays a pivotal role in this comedy anyway, both providing the bond between the two lead characters, Rosie and Willowden, who are mourning the death of Aunt Lucy, a big Dolly Parton fan -functioning as a center for its soundtrack. 10 out of the 12 tracks that conform the CD have been penned by Dolly herself, who next to Linda Perry produced the album, revisiting a few of her old classics. The two songs we’ve just heard are “Dumb Blondeâ€, played by Dolly and Miranda Lambert a few minutes ago, which had been also previously recorded and included in the 1967 album “Hello I’m Dollyâ€, and “If we don’tâ€, here next to Rhonda Vincent and Alison Krauss, being one of the new songs. It is refresing to hear Dolly hug these smooth melodies, with some intentionally referring to her crossover peak of the late 70s and early 80s.
Dolly Parton was a strong female voice in the male-dominated world of country music, where she excelled as both a singer and a songwriter. Just to say goodbye to Dolly we will listen to one of her most iconic songs the all-time classic “Just because I’m a womanâ€, well in the line of today’s program defending the female voices in country music. In this song, she demands equal treatment, making it clear that she shouldn’t be judged more harshly simply because of her gender. This being the American South in 1968, it was without a doubt a bold statement. In the lyrics she clearly points out that women and men are judged differently based on their sexual experience. This stems from a real-life dispute with her husband, Carl, whom she had married in 1966 and who started having second thoughts about Dolly’s past before their marriage. This song gave an early indication of Parton’s unique talents: how she could be both a paragon of traditional values and a champion of women’s rights.
We’ll say goodbye to this wonderful soundtrack listening to two more tracks, this time we are going to satisfy the selection of one of our listeners, Jabier Diaz, who wants to listen to the song “Here I am†from the 1971 album “Coat of many colorsâ€, curiously enough the track which opens this soundtrack we are reviewing today “Dumplin’â€, accompanied by the pop singer Sia. The second one is included in the extra CD in the album, which contains a series of songs mixed for the occasion, or simply selected from classics from 20 plus years ago. This time is the all-time classic we were just commenting a few moments ago, “Just because I’m a womanâ€.
Jeannie C. Riley giving her rendition to the classic by Dolly Parton. She is 73 years old today. She is best known for her 1968 country and pop hit "Harper Valley PTA" (written by Tom T. Hall), which missed (by one week) becoming the Billboard Country and Pop number one hit at the same time. In subsequent years, she had moderate chart success with country music, but never again duplicated the success of “Harper Valley PTAâ€. The great steel guitar legend Weldon Myrick gets credit for believing in her talent after listening to one of the demo tapes that Jeanne sent while still a teenager living in Stamford, Texas, who sent her a letter asking to move to Nashville Tenessee to record music for him.
The singer and songwriter Tom T. Hall had written a song called “Harper Valley, PTAâ€, and while Riley was working as a secretary in Nashville recording country demos on the side, the producer of Mercury Records at the time, Shelby Singleton, received one these demo tapes of Riley's voice. Singleton was starting and succeeding with his own label, Plantation Records, at the time. He worked with Riley in the recording of the Tom T. Hall demo song that Singleton saw potential in, "Harper Valley PTA.â€, and the record quickly became one of the best-known country music songs of all time. Riley became the very first female with the Number 1 in the Pop and Country charts at the same time. A "PTA" is a Parent Teacher Association. Popular in small towns of the United States, the organizations work to improve school conditions and encourage communication between parents and teachers. In some cases, the members of PTAs can be righteous and petty, and the characters in this song are depicted as such. The song struck a nerve with many women who felt some empathy with the character of the song: Stella Johnson.
The singer is the junior high-school daughter of the widowed Mrs. Johnson. The story begins when the daughter brings home a note from the Harper Valley PTA, signed by the Secretary, which decries Mrs. Johnson's allegedly scandalous behavior. Examples of conduct the town views as offensive to moral standards include wearing short dresses, engaging in dalliances with men and "goin' wild". Mrs. Johnson is outraged and attends the PTA meeting that happens to be going on that afternoon. The members attending have a surprise when she walks in wearing a miniskirt; she then exposes a long list of indiscreet behavior on the part of numerous people, present or not. She concludes her smackdown by labeling the PTA a bunch of hypocrites.
This is nothing but a cry for freedom for women: Harper Valley PTA, Jeannie C Riley.
To finish today’s salute to women of country music, we wanted to get our own rendition to one of the most authentic voices in Nashville, that of Gretchen Wilson, who no matter how many albums she sells, keeps being loyal to the fiddle and steel sound that made her famous in the first place.
My first experience with listening to the music of Gretchen was in 2004 when her song “Redneck Woman†was played nationwide over country radio stations. She broke the boundaries of what women in music are supposed to be singing about. She did not want to conform to the typical lifestyles most musicins choose to adhere to. Her music which some may refer to as “rough around the edges†breaks the stereotype of what society expects women to be. She belives that women should just be themselves and do what makes them happy, ever if it is not what the societal norm is. She was once described as a “ working class feminist for the post feminist ageâ€. Most of her songs talk about breaking the boundaries of what is socially acceptable for women, and proof of that is the fact that musicians like Gretchen Wilson give hope to those that do not have the luxiries and amenities that members of higher social classes have. For people of high social classes, hearing her lyrics may be offensive but it serves as a reminder that there is nothing that really makes them better than anyone else. It is my humble opinion that more musicians like Gretchen would help the world become a more equal place due to her speaking on behalf of those who do no t have the opportunity to and for that I respect her.
From her last album from 2017 called “Ready to get Rowdyâ€, we have listened to “I ain’t that desperate yetâ€, a wonderful plain and honest honky tonk sound as fresh as it was in 2005 when she released her debut album. To finish with today’s show we will listen to two more songs from the album, this time the songs that close the album. “A little Lorettaâ€, honoring Loretta Lynn as one of her most important influences in her career, and “Big Wood Deckâ€, song talking about building a wood deck where one can sit and enjoy a beer on the front porch, a very redneck way to end this podcast today.
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