Woman Enough

The pivotal moment in Gretchen Wilson's career took place in the apartment of her co-writer and associate producer John Rich, the former member of Lonestar who's on the charts again as one-half of the duo Big & Rich. They were watching CMT, killing a few minutes before sitting down to write a song.

"Two or three videos by current female artists came on," says Rich, "and Gretchen looked at me. She had a dip of Cherry Skoal in her mouth, smoking a Marlboro, and she said, 'John, I hope Nashville doesn't want me to look like that because I don't know if I can. They're just so slick. They're so perfect, and I'm not the Barbie doll type.' "

Wilson knew the type well. It's one template against which new female singers are judged, and she had come up against it in the form of major label auditions and had been found wanting a half-dozen times. "I wasn't the right age, I wasn't exactly thin enough, I wasn't exactly soft enough, pretty enough," she says.

Rich asked her to describe herself and she said, "I'm just kind of a redneck woman."

"Then that's the song we need to write," he said.

They wrote it, and it may well rewrite the current country rulebook. First, it loosed a flood of songs from Wilson and her co-writers that plumb the gritty realities of life for the legions of game but harried women who struggle with work and family in the trailer parks and taverns of redneck country. Then it helped get her a record deal. "Redneck Woman" was the first song Wilson sang for the new Sony Music leadership team of John Grady and Mark Wright in the meeting that led to her signing. Most importantly, radio and the buying public have embraced the record enthusiastically.

"Redneck Woman" reached the Top 10 of the Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in Billboard just five weeks after its release and it currently sits at #4. Among debut singles of the past 20 years, only Trisha Yearwood's "She's in Love With the Boy," Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achy Breaky Heart" and LeAnn Rimes' "Blue" rose as quickly, and they did so in an era when records moved much more rapidly up and down the charts. "Redneck Woman" is the top-selling download at walmart.com and it has landed Wilson a June 2 appearance on the Today show as well as a Grand Ole Opry appearance on May 15 and an opening slot on a summer tour with Brooks & Dunn and Montgomery Gentry.

The single's success took even Wilson's label by surprise, prompting it to move up the release of her debut album, Here for the Party. Sony is also featuring her in a series of ads for a Sony credit card that the label and BankOne are running in Rolling Stone, US Weekly and Men's Journal.

Wilson's success couldn't have come at a better time. Country music has been desperate for someone to make females viable again. Downloading, pop influences, a herd mentality and the lack of new superstars all have been cited as among the genre's recent problems. Still, several male acts, most notably Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney, have been holding their own.

For women, though, the situation has been critical. In the past 100 weeks, the only female to have a #1 Billboard single has been Terri Clark. There have been many weeks in the past few years when there were just two or three women in the Top 20, and just 10 or 12 in the Top 40. Faith Hill's last album was a disappointment, Shania's latest has sold just five million copies (its predecessor sold 19 million) and the Dixie Chicks haven't cracked the Top 40 since last year's unpleasantness involving Natalie Maines' swipe at George W. Bush. With the possible exception of Martina McBride, whose Greatest Hits album sold three million copies and whose singles have consistently gone Top 5, women simply aren't selling or charting like they were during the boom years of the late '90s. In fact, Country Weekly did a cover story on the phenomenon in December.

If the superstars are struggling, then the newcomers have had little hope. Recently, the Academy of Country Music announced that there would be no Top New Female Vocalist award given at its primetime awards show May 26. There simply weren't enough women to make the category competitive.

Wilson is changing that with a single that manages to justify the buzz Sony created for her at Nashville's Country Radio Seminar in February. "Redneck Woman" is a flat-out rocker crammed with references to taverns, Wal-Mart, year-round Christmas lights and tailgate parties. "Some people look down on me, but I don't give a rip / I'll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip," Wilson sings with an attitude country hasn't seen since the heyday of Loretta Lynn. The song's video, complete with muddy four-wheelers, a bit of skin and cameos by Big & Rich, Hank Jr., Tanya Tucker and Kid Rock, drives the point home. The trick to all of it is that there is no trick: It's just Gretchen being Gretchen.

"I'm the biggest thing that ever came/from my home town /And I'll be damned if I'm gonna let/'em down" — "Pocahontas Proud"