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Bridgewater Review

Volume 39 Issue 1 Article 4

4-2020

Felice Bryant and Songwriting in the

Paula Bishop Bridgewater State University

Follow this and additional works at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev

Part of the Composition Commons

Recommended Citation Bishop, Paula (2020). Felice Bryant and Country Music Songwriting in the 1950s. Bridgewater Review, 39(1), 4-7. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol39/iss1/4

This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Felice Bryant and Country Music Songwriting in the 1950s Paula Bishop f you were a country music artist working in in the 1950s, you might have found Iyourself at the home of Nashville , Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, enjoying one of Felice’s home-cooked meals. Boudleaux would present songs that he and Felice had written while Felice offered suggestions and corrections from the kitchen. On the surface this domestic scene suggests conventional gender roles in which the husband handles business Nashville image (Photo Credit: NiKreative / while the wife entertains the guests, but in fact, the Alamy Stock Photo) Bryants had learned to capitalize on Felice’s culinary the country of the 1950s skills and outgoing personality in order to build their and build a successful career, becom- professional songwriting career. As she once quipped, ing what Mary Bufwack and Robert Oermann called the “woman who if they fed the artists a “belly full of spaghetti and ears ignited the explosion of women writers full of songs,” they were more likely to choose a song on music Row.” written by the Bryants. Felice Bryant (1925-2003) was born Matilda Genevieve Scaduto in Bennett. Some of their biggest suc- Milwaukee, the home of numerous cesses came when Don and Phil Everly European immigrants. Her father scored hits on the country, R&B, and had arrived from Palermo, Sicily, mainstream charts with the Bryants’ around 1912, and her mother was a songs “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up, second-generation Sicilian American. Little Susie,” and others. The Bryants’ Felice loved to sing, and as a young approach—entertaining artists at girl, turned to writing songs, as home—helped them become two of well as poems and stories. She found the most sought-after songwriters dur- inspiration in The Best Loved Poems ing a critical period in the development of the American People, as well as the of country music. Furthermore, by Italian folksongs of her family and using her domestic sphere, Felice was the hymns and sacred songs of the able to defy the gendered constraints of Catholic Church. She met Boudleaux

Felice and Boudleaux Bryant (Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame® The men did not want her in and Museum) their space, but she could get Their songs were recorded by country artists such as , them into hers and use her skills , , , , and , as and tools to create a working well as mainstream pop artists like Tony business relationship.

4 Bridgewater Review (1920-1987) on Valentine’s Day, 1945, when his jazz band was playing at the Outside of performing as lead Schroeder Hotel where Felice worked as an elevator operator. When she or backup singers (not playing first spotted him, she immediately felt instruments), the only other roles attracted to him and conspired to get his attention. She offered to buy him available to women in country a (free) drink at the water fountain but accidentally splashed water on him music were typically secretaries. instead. He was charmed by her, and a few days later they embarked on their Felice and just a small handful life together. Boudleaux gave her the nickname of “Felice,” which she used of other women … worked as for the remainder of her life. songwriters, a profession generally In the early years of their mar- riage, Felice and Boudleaux made reserved for men. Boudleaux’s hometown of Moultrie, Georgia, their home base. From there they traveled together to musical gigs, country music industry. “Everybody with their home life. In the early years, but more often than not, Felice stayed thought we were crazy,” Felice later they would write at night after putting home while Boudleaux went out on noted, “but we saw the far vision.” their sons, Dane and Del, to bed. In the the road to perform. Left alone for long morning, they would send the boys to Felice and Boudleaux knew that to stretches, she grew bored and turned to school then sleep until they returned. support themselves solely as songwriters writing songs. As she explained, “My While working together at home, they needed to write a fair number of God, it took half an hour to clean this Felice recalled that they could “feed hit songs. That meant getting as many damned apartment. There is nowhere ideas back and forth while I did the songs as possible recorded with the top to go. I mean what could you do?” housework.” Boudleaux wrote down and up-and-coming country music Boudleaux, too, was writing songs their ideas while Felice moved about artists, which in turn meant they would while out on the road. their home completing the household need a substantial catalog from which chores, thus finding a way to balance Eventually, they pooled their work and artists could choose. They quickly the demands of their professional life began to write together. Once they had established a writing routine that with their family and home life. written over eighty songs, they looked allowed them to balance their career for a publisher but were not successful at first. In 1949, they met of Acuff-Rose Publishing, one of the first Nashville-based, country music- focused publishers. Rose placed one of their songs, “Country Boy,” with Little Jimmy Dickens, who scored a number seven hit with it. The success of that song inspired them to pursue songwrit- ing as a full-time profession, and so they moved their family, which now included two young sons, to Nashville in 1950. At that point, most country music songwriters supplemented their income by performing or working at other jobs. Some were recording artists who wrote for themselves. But very few people made songwriting their full- time profession. Furthermore, in 1950 Nashville was not yet the center of the , George Morgan, , Boudleaux Bryant, and Eddy Arnold, 1957 (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

April 2020 5 about so-and-so?’ because that would trigger something in her mind, you know.” , in describing a similar scene, recalled that Boudleaux usually went along with Felice’s sugges- tions. She once humorously noted that they fed the artists “until they couldn’t move and Boudleaux would have a cap- tive audience. They had to listen, and to get out, they had to take something. We’d trap ‘em!” Entertaining at home this way allowed Felice to work around the entrenched conservative male-dominated pro- cesses that governed the country music industry. Felice explained, “[T]hat was The , circa (Photo Credit: Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo) one of the reasons I stayed home a lot because it aggravated the good old boys Songwriters in Nashville in the 1950s exposure for your song. And if you [to have her in the studio]. And you worked somewhat like the Tin Pan had three or four or five or six encores sort of tried pretty much to stay out of Alley writers of in on a song, it might help launch it into their way because you were an uppity that publishers hired song pluggers to that next level of whatever that it took woman, whatever the hell that was. present songs to recording artists. This to become a hit.” Not only were they But what I did at home was my busi- was most often done in the studio of able to pitch songs and help current ness. I’m glad that Boudleaux enjoyed the as artists came and went ones gain further success, Felice and what we did at home and it became a for recording sessions. Some writers Boudleaux could tap into their knowl- business. It started out a hobby, but it created demo tapes that could be sent edge of the artists gained through their became our livelihood. But I still had to artists or label executives. While backstage relationships and write songs to stay out of the way of the boys.” The the Bryants did go to the studios and specifically for an artist, increasing their men did not want her in their space, but make tapes, they had the most success chance of placing a song. she could get them into hers and use by charting a different course, one that Another strategy that they used, and her skills and tools to create a working took advantage of Felice’s domestic one that proved to be quite successful business relationship. By inviting them skills and outgoing personality. for them, was to invite artists to their into her home, Felice controlled the Soon after they arrived in Nashville, home. Felice would fix a meal inspired situation and maintained agency over they started visiting with artists by her Italian upbringing—something her career, while working within the backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, the like spaghetti or chicken cacciatore, metaphorical home of country music. exotic foods in Nashville in the 1950s— While Boudleaux jammed with musi- while Boudleuax suggested songs from cians backstage and showed them songs their collection, often singing the tune they had written, Felice would tap into while accompanying himself on the the network of female artists and wives guitar. Felice would offer comments of male artists to find someone to watch and suggestions from the kitchen, their sons while she went into the house maintaining an active role in the sell- to act as cheerleader for their songs. ing and marketing of their songs. Fred Their son Del recalled, “Mom was Foster, founder of always running around and going out described the scene: “When they were to the stage area to get in to the audi- showing songs, it was like a party. She ence to scream and yell and hopefully was always bringing something to eat encourage an encore from the audience or drink, and he’s singing or looking because if you got an encore your song through the book [the ledgers in which was sung again. Or you had another they wrote their songs]. And he comes verse that Mom and Dad had written on a song, ‘Oh, this might be good.’ Felice and Boudleaux Bryant (Photo credit: and [it was] sung again. It was better And she’d say, ‘No, Boudleaux, how Courtesy of House of Bryant Publications)

6 Bridgewater Review gendered constraints of the country While developing her career as a song- of resistance” and quietly challenged music industry of the 1950s. writer, Felice simultaneously accepted various systems in order to bring about and relished her role as a wife and change for women. Using her domestic Broadly speaking, only a few women mother. This was before Betty Friedan space to create a pocket of resistance, found success in country music during suggested in The Feminine Mystique Felice built a successful career as a this time. The industry and its audi- (1963) that women were, in actuality, , and likely acclimated ence fully embraced the conservative being stifled by their roles as house- Music Row executives, musicians, post-World War II middle-class notion wives and mothers. Scholars such as and other industry leaders to the idea of the “ideal woman.” Women worked Elaine Tyler May have depicted women of women as full participants in the in the home, rearing the children, tak- like Felice as victims of a Cold War era creation and production of country ing care of the household chores such recontainment of women after their music outside of their traditional roles as provisioning, cooking, and clean- successes outside the home in World as singers and secretaries. ing, and providing for the needs of the War II, implying that they were victims husband. He, in turn, was expected to Bibliography without agency. These narratives of work outside the home and provide Bryant, Boudleaux, and Felice Bryant. containment depict the domestic sphere the income and stability necessary to Interview by John Rumble, March 26, 1983. as a place from which to escape, not one achieve and maintain the idealized Frist Library and Archive, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Bryant, Boudleaux, and Felice Bryant. Interview by Patricia A. Hall, November 19, Some of their biggest successes 1975. Frist Library and Archive, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. came when Don and Phil Everly Bufwack, Mary A., and Robert K. Oermann. Finding Her Voice: Women in Country Music, scored hits on the country, 1800-2000. Nashville: Country Music Foundation Press and Vanderbilt University, R&B, and mainstream charts 2003. Hurst, Jack. “Hit-Writing Song Pros Still with the Bryants’ songs “Bye Bye Don’t Know ‘Why.’” Nashville Tennessean, March 22, 1971. Love,” “Wake Up, Little Susie,” May, Elaine Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. New York: Basic and others. Books, 2008. Meyerowitz, Joanne Jay, ed. Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945- 1960. Temple University Press, 1994. middle-class lifestyle. Fan magazines to be harnessed. Therefore, the stories such as Country Song Roundup regularly of women who were rebellious or Rector, Lee. “Writers Felice & Boudleaux Review 30 Years.” Music City News, February praised female performers or the wives revolutionary and made significant 1980. of male performers for maintaining an contributions to a male-dominated Wilson, Lee. All I Have to Do Is Dream: The efficient and orderly home and caring domain have been privileged over Boudleaux and Felice Bryant Story. Nashville, for the children. Women performers those women who worked within the TN: House of Bryant Publications, 2011. were expected to dress and behave con- social and cultural boundaries of their servatively, which included not wearing time and place, as well as the women revealing clothes, drinking in public, or who worked in traditional support traveling alone with men that were not roles. Country music histories have their husbands. Outside of performing further inscribed this idea by focusing as lead or backup singers (not play- primarily on the exceptional women ing instruments), the only other roles performers who achieved success available to women in country music despite the odds (for example, Kitty were typically secretaries. Felice and Wells and in the 1950s). just a small handful of other women, Joanne Meyerowitz and others have including , Jenny Lou criticized May’s containment narra- Paula Bishop is a Part-time Faculty Member Carson, and Marijohn Wilkins, worked tive and challenged us to look for the in the Department of Music. as songwriters, a profession generally ways these women created “pockets reserved for men.

April 2020 7