100 Greatest Women, #50: Jeannie C. Riley

100 Greatest Women

#50

Jeannie C. Riley

Her music was more outspokenly feminist than any of her contemporaries, but Jeannie C. Riley was on the receiving end of every sexist obstacle imaginable as she worked her way toward stardom, with the path not getting any easier once she obtained it.

Jeannie was raised in the small town of Anson, Texas, and grew up dreaming of stardom.  Her uncle played guitar in a country band, and arranged for her to sing locally.    By the time she graduated high school, she was already married and had a baby on the way.   Her husband Mickey was supportive of her dream, and after a trip to Nashville and a visit to the backstage of the Opry, her determination was fierce.  The couple moved to Music City in 1966.

100 Greatest Women, #51: Terri Clark

100 Greatest Women

#51

Terri Clark

When Mercury records launched Terri Clark in 1995, they billed her as country music’s first female hat act. Over the next decade, she’d show a lot more staying power than most of her male contemporaries, adapting to the big changes in country music along the way.

Clark grew up in Medicine Hat, a town in Alberta, Canada. Her grandparents had been country stars on the Canadian country music scene, and her mother had sang in local coffeehouses. Terri taught herself to play guitar by listening to her grandparents’ country records. She was inspired to pursue a country career of her own by the female stars of the new traditionalist movement in American country music, particularly the mid-eighties work of Reba McEntire and The Judds.

As soon as she graduated high school in 1987, she headed all the way to Nashville. She headed downtown and walked right into Tootsie’s Orchard Lounge, the legendary Broadway watering hole. Impressed by the young woman’s talent and grit, the managers hired her as a house singer. Clark worked odd jobs around town while moonlighting at the establishment, until a batch of self-written songs caught the attention of Mercury records, and they promptly signed her to a recording contract.

100 Greatest Women, #52: Juice Newton

100 Greatest Women

#52

Juice Newton

The cross-pollination between pop and country music in the early eighties provided an opening for Juice Newton and her undeniably infectious aural confections.

By the time that the hits started rolling in, they had been a long time coming. Newton had found local success in a band she dubbed Juice Newton & The Silver Spur. Their regional popularity led to a deal with RCA in the mid-seventies. They released two albums, an eponymous debut in 1975 and After the Dust Settles in 1976, but both projects sank quietly, with one single barely denting the country charts.

The band switched to Capitol records, but disbanded after a third album went nowhere. Newton stayed on the label as a solo act, and her single “It’s a Heartache” nicked the bottom of the pop charts. It became a smash single in Mexico, but American audiences embraced Bonnie Tyler’s version instead. She made some headway with her 1979 album Take Heart, which featured five charting country singles, but none of them made a significant impact.

Review: Eddy Arnold, “To Life”

A heartbreakingly beautiful toast to life, given by a man humbled by the blessings he’s been given over the years.  “Life,” he sings, “you served your finest wine.  I drank it down to find my glass was always full.”

Listening to this, I couldn’t help but remember watching an old clip of Eddy Arnold being given the ACM Pioneer Award.     He accepted with his voice cracking, and said that “I don’t want accolades.  I just want to sing.”     That is the man singing this song, always the country gentleman.

Arnold recorded “To Life” three years ago, and RCA has chosen to release it as a single in the wake of his death.    So perfect is the sentiment of the record, so truly sincere is the performance, that sending this record out is a most fitting tribute to the man and his music.

Written by Ken Leray and Dan Tyler

Grade: A+

Listen: To Life

Buy: To Life

Review: Taylor Swift, “Should’ve Said No”

This is very well-written.   It’s to Swift’s credit that this song that she penned herself could be credibly sung by a woman twice her age but is still relevant to the female teen demographic that has powered her success.    The band backs her up with great spirit.   Her vocal is too forced, which is something that has been a problem with most of her work, but she wrote herself a winner here and the quality of the song shines through.  There’s even a charm to the earnest ferociousness of her performance.    I’m impressed.

Written by Taylor Swift

Grade: B+

Listen: Should’ve Said No

Buy: Should’ve Said No

Review: Marcel, “I Love This Song”

Full disclosure: I’m a big Marcel fan.   I say this because it’s pretty hard to make an clear, rational case for his music in a review.   I just like it.  It makes me smile.  It makes me laugh.   It’s ridiculous and makes perfect sense at the same time.

Give it a listen.    You’ll love it or you’ll hate it.    As for me, I’ll be hitting repeat for the rest of the evening.

Written by Marcel and Jeffrey Steele

Grade: B+

Listen: I Love This Song

100 Greatest Women, #53: Jo Dee Messina

100 Greatest Women

#53

Jo Dee Messina

The first big post-Shania country star, Jo Dee Messina fully embodied the girl power movement of the late nineties, releasing catchy country-pop songs that were consistently from a strong woman’s point of view.

One of the few major country stars to hail from the northeast, she’s a Massachusetts native who moved to Nashville when she was nineteen. While doing office jobs during the day, she performed in talent shows and on the radio show Live at Libby’s.

Producer Bryan Gallimore heard her on the radio show and contacted her. They agreed to work together to secure her a record contract, and Messina became fast friends with another young hopeful, Tim McGraw. When McGraw broke through, he introduced Messina to his label executives at Curb. They signed Messina, and McGraw and Gallimore came on board as her producers.

100 Greatest Women, #54: Sara Evans

100 Greatest Women

#54

Sara Evans

A pure country singer with a sweet tooth for pop hooks. Sara Evans has been one of the most prominent female artists during the male-dominated 21st century, thanks not only to her talent, but also to her ability to adapt to changing times.

She sounded like something out of another era when she burst on the country music scene in 1997, only two years after moving back to Nashville after a stint in Oregon. While she had recorded some sides in the early nineties with E and S Records, she was pretty much starting all over again when she returned to Music City in 1995. But songwriting legend Harlan Howard heard her take on his classic tune “I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail”, and was so impressed that he worked actively to get her noticed. Eventually, his efforts led to a deal with RCA Records.

100 Greatest Women, #55: Jeannie Seely

100 Greatest Women

#55

Jeannie Seely

With the voice of a honky tonk angel and the mouth of a sailor, Jeannie Seely has been one of the most forceful personalities on the country music scene since she had her first big hit in 1966.

She started listening to the Grand Ole Opry when she was just a tot, and by her early teens, she was singing on local radio shows in her small town Pennsylvania. At the age of sixteen, she began making television appearances on a station out of Erie. As smart as she was talented, Seely took business classes at night after high school, while also making appearances in local talents shows. When her car got stuck in a snowstorm, she decided to leave the chilly northeast world and move to Los Angeles.

Her business skills helped her land a banking job in Beverly Hills, but she took a pay cut to go work at Liberty and Imperial Records instead. She wrote some songs for Four Star Music and became a regular performer on the Hollywood Jamboree television series. She released some regionally successful singles on Challenge Records, and her songs were cut by Dottie West and R&B act Irma Thomas.

Discussion: Mother’s Day Songs

Well, it’s Mother’s Day. In country music, though, it should probably be called Mama’s Day. At any rate, country music, like rap music, is fond of covering the topic of mothers.

As a daughter, my ultimate favorite song about mamas is Patty Loveless’ “How Can I Help You Say Goodbye.” In this song, we find a loving mother who supports her daughter through some of the most heartbreakingly challenging times in her life, the times when one is forced to say goodbye. First, the daughter must say goodbye to a childhood friend due to a move. Instead of minimizing her young daughter’s feelings of sadness and loss, the mother consoles her and asks, “How Can I help You to say Goodbye?” She assures her that it’s “Okay to hurt/it’s okay to cry.” Then she puts those all important verbs into her sentences by saying, “Come, let me hold you and I will try/How can I help you to say goodbye.”

When the same daughter is a grown adult, the first person she calls when her marriage dissolves is her mother, because past experience tells her that Mama will know how to help her begin to say goodbye to her failed marriage without judgment.

Finally, we come to the clincher. Mama, the one who has so expertly helped her daughter through all of her sad goodbyes is, now, saying goodbye. With her final words, she says: “Time will ease your pain/Life’s about changing, nothing ever stays the same/…How can I help you to say goodbye?/It’s OK to hurt, and it’s OK to cry/Come, let me hold you and I will try/How can I help you to say goodbye?”

When Patty Loveless recorded this song, she had to record it three times before she could sing it without beginning to cry. Nonetheless, the final recording still appropriately captures her deep emotions. After all of these years, this song still appeals to my emotions as well, which, to me, is a testament of a superb song.

So, there you have it…my favorite Mother’s Day song.  What’s yours and why?