There's bro-country and then there's her country, says veteran music journalist Marissa R. Ross.
While country music is full of misogyny, racism and homophobia, Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, and Mickey Guyton found a way around male dominated Nashville Music Row to forge successful careers.
Ross explains how these superstars made their voices heard and what women everywhere can learn from them in the new book, Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be.
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Ross tells Jesse Mulligan she discovered something shocking while reporting about sexual harassment and misconduct in country music industry.
“A lot of people told me that it was an open secret to the point that it was like why would you even bother to report on it?
Photo: Henry Holt and Co
“And that was really shocking to me just because something might be an open secret, doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about, kind of the opposite.
“When Taylor Swift came out with her story about how she had been groped by a radio executive backstage at a show and spoke out about it … I thought at the time, if this was happening to someone like Taylor Swift, what’s happening to the up and coming artists?
“I almost took that as a bat signal to delve deeper and see what was below the surface there.”
In some ways, the industry had pretty much skipped the MeToo movement which gripped many other spheres, she says.
“Everyone is so afraid to speak out in country music … there’s this thing that every country music is a family, and everyone looks out for each other.
“But it’s also a family in a sense of everybody talks and it’s very easy to be kicked out of the dining room, the holiday table, if you say the wrong thing.
Country music is reflective of the cultural divides and political polarisation, she says.
“It’s like a microcosm of what’s happening in our world right now.
“Making artists is a political act in its own way. And country music has always existed in that space. I mean, from creation it was segregated into race records, it was split into genres for black listeners and white listeners so that is an inherently political act and that was done for a marketing premise.”
But who can be political is another question, she says, with the 9/11 attacks having a ripple effect on programming that favoured songs about patriotism and nationalism from male artists.
So when The Chicks, formerly known as Dixie Chicks, spoke out against the Iraq war, they faced a backlash and were pulled from air.
“I chart their moves a lot in the book because I find them so incredibly inspiring and they took this moment and then they decided to say that they were not ready to make nice, they didn’t want to kind of kiss any butts to regain their power and position in country music,” Ross says.
“They said we’re going to stick with our morals and our guts and our own compasses and do what we want and what we feel is right.
“They never really regained that kind of standing within country radio at all but they gained new fans and a new vision for how you can lead a country music career that I think was so inspiring to so many of the women that came next and men too.”
Kacey Musgraves, who was almost instantly recognised for her talent, also faced the wrath of radio programmers “because they didn’t think she was nice and flirty and made them feel good about themselves”, Ross says.
“She had to fight really, really hard for her first single, Merry Go ‘Round, people wanted something more upbeat and then when she started going out on a radio tour … the radio programmers and DJs didn’t find her to be friendly or accommodating.”
But the arrival of streaming platforms helped artists reach audiences in ways radio did not allow, she says.
“I mean in Mickey’s case for example, Mickey Guyton, she got so much life for her song Black Like Me over Spotify so [since] radio wasn’t going to play her, she found her audience her way through streaming so that was really valuable.”
In fact, the secret to the success of these female country music trailblazers was that they followed their own path and not the one expected of them, she says.
“Sometimes maybe it was more pop, sometimes it was more country, sometimes it was doing something totally different, but it was always their truth. Or to quote Kacey Musgraves following their own arrow and that’s the way you kind of have to find your voice as a woman or a minority in country music.
“And they also, I think more than anything, show a future where more change can happen and more people can be led into the country music landscape and more women can be heard.
“So they’re all really about opening the door and keeping it propped open for everyone who comes next.”