Gender, Race, Class, and Region in Female Country Music, 1980-1989
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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Dissertations Department of History 4-8-2009 From Countrypolitan to Neotraditional: Gender, Race, Class, and Region in Female Country Music, 1980-1989 Dana C. Wiggins Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Wiggins, Dana C., "From Countrypolitan to Neotraditional: Gender, Race, Class, and Region in Female Country Music, 1980-1989." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2009. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss/21 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FROM COUNTRYPOLITAN TO NEOTRADITIONAL: GENDER, RACE, CLASS, AND REGION IN FEMALE COUNTRY MUSIC, 1980-1989 by DANA C. WIGGINS Under the Direction of Michelle Brattain ABSTRACT During the 1980s, women in country music enjoyed unprecedented success in record sales, television, film, and on pop and country charts. For female performers, many of their achievements were due to their abilities to mold their images to mirror American norms and values, namely increasing political conservatism, the backlashes against feminism and the civil rights movement, celebrations of working and middle class life, and the rise of the South. This dissertation divides the 1980s into three distinct periods and then discusses the changing uses of gender, race, class, and region in female country music and links each to larger historical themes. It concludes that political and social conservatism influenced women’s country performances and personas. In this way, female country music is a social text that can be used to examine 1980s America. INDEX WORDS: Country music, Women performers, Gender, Race, Class, Region, 1980s, Conservatism, Popular culture FROM COUNTRYPOLITAN TO NEOTRADITIONAL: GENDER, RACE, CLASS, AND REGION IN FEMALE COUNTRY MUSIC, 1980-1989 by DANA C. WIGGINS A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2009 Copyright by Dana C. Wiggins 2009 FROM COUNTRYPOLITAN TO NEOTRADITIONAL: GENDER, RACE, CLASS, AND REGION IN FEMALE COUNTRY MUSIC, 1980-1989 by DANA C. WIGGINS Committee Chair: Michelle Brattain Committee: Glenn T. Eskew Clifford M. Kuhn Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2009 iv TO MAYA v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the efforts of the following individuals. I would first like to thank my committee members--Michelle Brattain, Cliff Kuhn and Glenn Eskew-- for their patience and insights. In addition, I extend a heartfelt thanks to the archivists at the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Museum of Television and Radio, and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill who spent hours helping me sort through fan club records, videos, country music paraphernalia, and other documents. My colleagues and fellow graduate students, in particular members of FLOGME and the “Cube Farm,” provided moral and academic support during this long process. Aubrey Underwood, Jennifer Dickey, Fakhri Hagani, Larry Youngs, and Andy Reisinger deserve special thanks. Personally, I am indebted to Rebecca, who has displayed unwavering support and understanding. Thank you to my mother, for instilling in me a love for all things southern. To my father, for the introduction, a la Willie Nelson, to the beauties of country music. To Lisa for inspiring and challenging me and to Juli, a fellow fan. And to Kathy, thanks for everything. Finally, I would like to thank Dolly, Emmylou, Barbara, kd, Reba, Wynonna, Naomi, K.T., Loretta, Tanya and all of the ladies of country music. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v INTRODUCTION: NASHVILLE’S CHANGING FACES 1 Background 4 Historiographical Essay 7 Organization 41 CHAPTER 1. WHEN COUNTRY WAS “COOL,” 1980-1983 49 Gender 51 Race 72 Class 82 Region 92 2. VIDEO KILLED THE URBAN COWGIRL, 1983-1986 103 Gender 108 Race 132 Region 144 Class 156 3. “NOW WE’RE 80’S LADIES,” 1987-1989 163 Gender 166 Race 209 Class 221 Region 227 CONCLUSION 237 vii BIBLIOGRAPHY 264 1 INTRODUCTION NASHVILLE’S CHANGING FACES With the release of Urban Cowboy in 1980, country music became trendy, widespread, and in the words of Barbara Mandrell, “cool.”1 This film ushered in an entire decade of country music on television, the silver screen, and on more radio stations than ever before in history. Female country singers profited from this trend and during the 1980s, their share of hit records rose from 10 to 20 percent to 25 to 35 percent.2 Their success can be attributed to the talent and path-breaking efforts of prior performers, but these factors alone do not sufficiently explain their newfound popularity. Image contributed as well and, like their forerunners, country music females presented deliberately crafted appearances to appeal to a larger audience. But women performers in the 1980s used different strategies from those of their predecessors to win legitimacy and fans. These women, like those before them, drew on images of the South, race, class, and gender to link them to a country fan base; however, these representations meant dramatically different things at different times. Furthermore, as the 1980s progressed, the images continued to adapt to adhere to the political, economic, and social climates of the day. The visual and musical changes also corresponded to larger historical themes and trends for women in America, in terms of both the representations and tactics women used to gain power and popularity. This dissertation examines the changing uses of gender, race, class, and region in female country music in the 1980s and links these changes to prevalent political, social, and 1. This quote is taken from Mandrell’s “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool,” Barbara Mandrell Live, MCA, 1981. 2. Mary A. Bufwack and Robert K. Oermann, “Reba McEntire Walks On,” Journal of Country Music 16, no. 1 (1993): 16; Alanna Nash, “The Gender Gap,” Country Music 227 (August–September 2003): 23–35. 2 economic currents. Examining the uses of each allows us to investigate larger themes regarding what it meant to be female, white, and southern in 1980s America. Female country musicians performed more than their songs; they performed gender, region, class, and race as well. Each image was a carefully crafted representation, a social construction created for consumption that coincided with views of the South, whiteness, southern womanhood, and working- and middle-class values. Female performers had been using similar themes since the advent of commercial country music in the 1920s; however, in the 1980s these subjects took on new meanings rooted in the political, social, and economic changes associated with this decade. During the 1980s the South underwent an image transformation; it became known as the home of former president Jimmy Carter, the Sunbelt, and a land of redemption, not a place of anti-civil rights violence and “hillbillies.” This era also saw conservative resurgence, Cold War tensions, economic turmoil, military buildups, and backlash against the civil rights movement and feminism. Women in country music changed along with these developments and altered their images, expressed class-based sentiments of the period, used various versions of the South, and bound themselves together through race and class. By 1990 women’s reign in country music, at least for the moment, was over. Male “hunks” and “hat acts” pushed women aside, and female country singles fell to 12 percent, the lowest since the early 1960s. Regardless of this male takeover, “80’s Ladies” are significant both in terms of the music industry itself and for what they tell us about American culture.3 They paved the way for future women stars such as Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks and set precedents for up-and-coming female musicians. Their music was also important 3. The quote is taken from KT Oslin’s “80’s Ladies,” 80’s Ladies, RCA, 1987; Deanna D. Sellnow, “Music as Persuasion: Refuting Hegemonic Masculinity in ‘He Thinks He‘ll Keep Her,’” Women‘s Studies in Communication 22, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 66–84. 3 in itself in that it reached a larger audience and helped promote unity and group identity among fans. Michel Foucault has argued that each culture has rules that determine who is allowed to speak, when their voices are appropriate, how their messages should be fashioned, and what they will or will not be allowed to say. In the United States, these standards have been traditionally embedded in hegemonic masculinity; therefore, women in country music, by “speaking” within the system, helped promote the status quo. The music and performers attracted fans who shared and reinforced the ideas and social constructions they displayed. In this way their music, especially the representations individual women projected, provide a medium through which to view the values and sentiments of its fans. Moreover, the marketplace, the country music industry, and the performers themselves helped to set and reinforce standards. In these ways, country music reflected the standards that governed behaviors, providing clues about which actions and performances were acceptable and which were not, and, since country music moved beyond the South in the 1980s, it can also speak to national conceptions of gender, class, race, and the South.4 This dissertation examines the visual and audio portrayals of female country musicians in the 1980s in order to show their changing uses of race, gender, class, and region. It focuses less on the realities of the women’s day-to-day lives and concentrates more on how others portrayed them, or how they portrayed themselves.