UT Press to Release “Woman Walk The Line” Book
With the effort to tell the story of country music from the female perspective, the Texas University Press will release a new book called Woman Walk the Line: Women Writers on the Female Country Artists Who Marked Their Soul in September, 2017. Part of the American Music Series from UT Press, the 236-page book will be the first in the series to not focus on an individual in biography form, and instead will be a collection of essays from multiple artists compiled and edited by country music journalist and critic Holly Gleason.
Contributing essays to the book will be numerous classic and contemporary country artists, including Rosanne Cash, Loretta Lynn, The Judds, Alison Krauss, and Taylor Swift. Woman Walk the Line is country women writing about other women who’ve inspired them. Taylor Swift writes about country music Hall of Famer Brenda Lee. Second-generation performer Aubrie Sellers explores the influence of Alison Krauss. Rosanne Cash pens an essay on June Carter Cash. And Grace Potter writes about Linda Ronstadt among other essays.
“‘Woman Walk the Line’ came about because it feels like we’re not just in danger of losing the story of so many incredible artists, especially the women, but that deeper sense of what music can truly to mean to someone in their life,” says Holly Gleason. “The way this music and these women are written about says so much about the way music marks our lives, shapes our journey or keeps us safe in rugged times. It’s women of varying ages all writing about how music touched and changed their lives — part witness, part love letter, a bit of music criticism, a little history and a whole lot of heart. It’s more than what they wore or who they dated, as today’s reductionist media makes it. And that’s where the marrow of these essays begins.”
The book also includes contributions from Alice Randall, Holly George-Warren, Wendy Pearl, and Cynthia Sanz. Woman Walk the Line: Women Writers on the Female Country Artists Who Marked Their Soul is now available for pre-order.
Contents:
- Maybelle Carter: The Root of It All (Caryn Rose)
- Lil Hardin: That’s How I Got to Memphis (Alice Randall)
- Wanda Jackson: When She Starts Eruptin’ (Holly George-Warren )
- Hazel Dickens: The Plangent Bone (Ronni Lundy)
- June Carter Cash: Eulogy for a Mother (Rosanne Cash)
- Brenda Lee: Rare Peer (Taylor Swift)
- Bobbie Gentry: Let the Mystery Be (Meredith Ochs)
- Loretta Lynn: The Pill (Madison Vain)
- Dolly Parton: Long Island Down Home Blues (Nancy Harrison)
- Emmylou Harris: Common Ground in an Uncommon Love (Ali Berlow)
- Barbara Mandrell: Lubbock in the Rearview Mirror (Shelby Morrison)
- Tanya Tucker: Punk Country and Sex Wide Open (Holly Gleason)
- Rita Coolidge: A Dark-Eyed Cherokee Country Gal (Kandia Crazy Horse)
- Linda Ronstadt: Canciones di Corazon Salvage (Grace Potter)
- Rosanne Cash: Expectations and Letting Go (Deborah Sprague)
- The Judds: Comfort Far from Home (Courtney E. Smith)
- k.d. lang: Flawless, Fearless (Kelly McCartney)
- Lucinda Williams, Flesh & Ghosts, Dreams + Marrow (Lady Goodman)
- Mary Chapin Carpenter: Every Hometown Girl (Cynthia Sanz)
- Patty Loveless: Beyond What You Know (Wendy Pearl)
- Shania Twain: But the Little Girls Understand (Emily Yahr)
- Alison Krauss: Draw Your Own Map (Aubrie Sellers)
- Terri Clark: Better Things to Do (Amy Elizabeth McCarthy)
- Taylor Swift: Through the Eyes of a Critic, of a Mom (Elysa Gardner)
- Kacey Musgraves: Follow Your Arrow (Dacey Orr)
- Rhiannon Giddens: A Gift Past the Songs (Caroline Randall Williams)
- Patty Griffin: Remembering to Breathe (Kim Ruehl)
April 10, 2017 @ 1:24 pm
Woman Walk the Line is also an AMAZING song co-written by Emmylou Harris. I first heard it in 1992 on Trisha Yearwood’s Hearts of Armor album. I was 15 years old and somehow appreciated the beauty of this song. Emmylou Harris sings back-up and it’s just stunning. I think it’s the song that put me on the path to traditional country music.
One of my all time favorite songs.
April 10, 2017 @ 4:58 pm
I wouldn’t have thought about Bobbie Gentry for 20 bucks….whatever happened to her?
I think it should have KT Oslin in it too, as well as many others I don’t see listed. But I guess you have to start somewhere.
April 13, 2017 @ 9:00 am
Bobbie Gentry has seen a huge resurgence of interest in the last fifteen years.Recently her songs have been featured on the hit television show ,Fargo. Her classics story song, Fancy, is in the process of being developed into a Broadway musical. Her catalog has seen high quality re-issues. Universal Records in 2016-17 has been re-issuing her albums in Japan. In 2016 Rolling Stone magazine listed both her classic story songs, Ode To Billie Joe and Fancy, in their top 100 country songs of all time issue. Ode to Billie Joe has officially passed the 50 million sales mark on over 100 covers. Fancy has passed the 25 million mark on over a dozen covers .She remains the first woman in country music to sell a million albums.The first woman to earn a certified gold album for duets( with Glen Campbell). The first person to have a #1 pop and country album. In her career she has won a grammy hall of fame award( for O.T.B.J) 3 grammys,, 2 A.C.M’s, 2 Brit Music Awards and three times won the Las Vegas entertainment award for top female review. She signed the first million dollar contract for a woman in Vegas in 1971 and the first multi million dollar contract for a woman in 1976. Most importantly her music has stood the test of time.
April 10, 2017 @ 5:18 pm
Taylor Swift? Oh brother.She was NEVER country and the only thing she contributed to the genre was whiny, immature breakup songs.(But they ain’t gonna tell the truth,are they?)
April 10, 2017 @ 5:45 pm
I was wondering when somebody was going to complain…. grow up! Linda Ronstadt isn’t really country either and you’re not complaining about her.
April 10, 2017 @ 5:53 pm
Look, I understand the whole “Taylor Swift is not country” argument because I made it for years and years during the “country” portion of her career. But Taylor Swift did not need to participate in this book, and she did. She also did what dozen of other current country artists should do, which is come clean and call themselves pop. I’ll judge Taylor Swift’s contributions to this book when I read them, but if lending her name to this project helps shine a bigger light on the artists highlighted here, more power to her.
April 10, 2017 @ 6:03 pm
Exactly. My point is she gets a lot of hate usually just because people want to hate her. When she showed up at last year’s CMAs to present Entertainer of the Year, people were mad simply because she was there. It’s not like she performed or anything, she was just presenting an award. Lots of non-country artists and actors present at country shows. She’s not the only one.
Anyway, sorry for distracting from the actual point of the article.
April 11, 2017 @ 4:13 pm
Linda’s music doesn’t suck, she’s not a liar, she’s not manipulative, and if her music did suck I’m sure I would not have to hear it all of the time. Sorry, I am a fan of real, true country, and Taylor Swift’s is honestly some of the worst music I have ever heard. I am tired of my favorite genre constantly being invaded by these no good (in my opinion) “artists”. So to say that Taylor Swift was a major contributor to female country music garners nothing but an eye roll from me.(Plus my sister listens to her all of the time, so I’m kinda on the hate train until I don’t have to be around it anymore.)
April 16, 2017 @ 9:08 am
I think it serves little purpose to box artists into stringent categories. The most interesting artists( to me anyway) have always transcended labels. The great Johnny Cash complained that he was more than a country artist. So did Glen Campbell and Bobbie Gentry. Not one of Brenda Lee’s big hits went top forty country. It is on the strength of those records( not her forgettable country singles of the 70’s-80’s) that she is in the Country Music Hall Of Fame. Linda Ronstadt’s, Heart Like A Wheel, album influenced generations of female country singers. She deserves induction.If the Hall has room for Elvis, they have room for hybrid artists. What’s most disturbing for me, is the lack of female artists in the C.M.H.O.F. Only 16 solo female country singers inducted and a 12-1 ratio of men to women. Another irony is almost all country music played on the radio today would not fit the classic definition of the genre from the 60’s and 70’s. The music is constantly evolving. .
April 10, 2017 @ 5:51 pm
Grow up. It’s not like it’s a bunch of people writing about Taylor, it’s just her writing about Brenda Lee and it’s only a small part of the book. Linda Ronstadt and Grace Potter aren’t country either but you’re not complaining about them being included.
April 10, 2017 @ 5:54 pm
Whoops, I didn’t mean to post two comments. I thought the first one didn’t post so I did another one. My apologies.
April 10, 2017 @ 6:29 pm
Linda probably wouldn’t fit the definition of “country” if it’s limited to Nashville and the Southern experience, since she’s from the wide open spaces of the Southwest, has always musically been far more rock-oriented, and always more Laurel Canyon than Music Row. But her deep-seated appreciation and knowledge of the genre’s roots and her frequent simultaneous appearances on both the country and pop charts make her influence far too large to ignore. If not for Linda, you likely wouldn’t have Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, Terri Clark, Suzy Bogguss, Carrie Underwood, and dozens of other female artists who’ve come into the genre since the 1980s, and who all point to Linda as a big reason why they sought out singing careers at all.
April 10, 2017 @ 5:47 pm
Unnecessary division. From Mother Maybelle, Loretta, Dolly, Wanda, Patsy, Tammy, Jeannie, Emmylou, Pattie, Shania, Lucinda, and Elizabeth, plus all the youngsters now, women’s contributions have been integral, excellent, and profound. Country music history is as much their history as much as the men’s, and from the beginning. Yes, men have been cads, as have been women. If you want to make this oral history, cool.
But the history is one thing. It’s American history.
April 10, 2017 @ 9:23 pm
The wording of this piece is odd. It says, “Contributing essays to the book will be numerous classic and contemporary country artists, including Rosanne Cash, Loretta Lynn, The Judds, Alison Krauss, Bobbie Gentry, Tammy Wynette, and Taylor Swift.” Tammy Wynette has passed, of course. I’m guessing the very private Bobbie Gentry will not actually contribute an essay. Perhaps essays ABOUT Tammy Wynette and Bobbie Gentry will be included?
April 10, 2017 @ 9:40 pm
I agree the wording is a little strange, but this is the way the material is being presented by the UT Press at the moment, probably because this book may still be under final edits and such since it won’t be out until September. I was also confused how there are names of artists on the cover, including Dolly Parton, K.D. Lang, and Emmylou Harris—who as someone else pointed out performed the song “Woman Walk The Line”—but none of that information was included in the press material. My sense is all this will be clarified as we get closer to the release. I don’t know for sure if Bobby Gentry and Wynette will actually contribute something, or just be the subjects of tributes from contemporaries. I expect as we get closer to the release, all of this will be clarified.
April 10, 2017 @ 10:24 pm
Okay I was just able to hunt down a list of contents. It says for the Bobby Gentry portion:
“Bobbie Gentry: Let the Mystery Be (Meredith Ochs)”
Meredith Ochs is a journalist who works for NPR. So my guess is that would not be a contribution from Bobbie, but a contribution about Bobby.
Tammy Wynette is not listed in the contents, so I don’t know about that one.
I will post the entire contents above if that helps clarify things.
April 18, 2017 @ 9:42 am
There’s also another book called “The women of country music” . That goes back to the time before The Carter Family : https://www.amazon.com/Women-Country-Music-Reader/dp/0813122805
And according to one of the Author in that book The first woman to ever make a
solo recording was a young country/hillbilly girl from Georgia by the name of. It was recorded in 1924 (three years before the first recording by The Carter Family). And was called “Devilish Mary” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g187E3IuYBs
April 18, 2017 @ 9:44 am
* by the name of Roba Stanley
August 24, 2017 @ 1:57 pm
Get a grip people. Enjoy the ones you like and overlook the ones you don’t care for. Everyone has their own favorites! I look forward to the entertainment. You talk about someone not fitting in…it’s not all about you. Give some positive support for the project..GOOD GRIEF!