Country Soul Sisters (2LP)

This new album on Soul Jazz Records is a stunning collection of tracks by female country singers. The album features all the classic artists – Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Tanya Tucker – as well as many lesser-known singers. The album comes with extensive sleevenotes charting the rise of female artists in country music from early stars such as Patsy Cline and Kitty Wells up to the astute-minded superstar figures such as Dolly Parton – whose businesses currently include the theme park Dollywood, a film production company as well as a philanthropic literacy campaign, ‘Dolly Parton’s Imagi­nation Library’. This album also features artists such as Nancy Sinatra, Bobbie Gentry who also made country music but existed outside the traditional Nashville framework as well as artists with a leaning towards country soul music such as Jeannie C Riley, Diana Trask and Barbara Mandrell. Far from the traditional conservative image of country music this album features songs about female empowerment as well as a number of radical subjects – Prostitution, abortion, death and angels, workplace sexual exploitation, small town bigotry and more – from Kitty Wells’ groundbreaking It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels to Jean Shepherd’s Two Whoops and A Holler – where she sings that a woman who drinks, smokes or tells a joke is lower than a piece of ham in the eyes of men. Country Soul Sisters is a extensive guide to female country singers from 1952–74. As well as the extensive sleevenotes the accompanying large outsize booklet in card slipcase also includes stunning photography from the Getty picture archive and also includes new interviews with a number of the featured artists. As well as the slipcase CD edition there is also a limited edition heavyweight double gatefold vinyl edition complete with full sleeve-notes and super-loud pressing.