The Person I Chose For My Research Paper

Commercially, some women have experienced extreme success while under the country music umbrella. Shania Twain, one of the most popular artists in the 1990s, “Not only is [...] country music’s most successful female artist, she also recorded the genre’s most successful album of all time, Come On Over in 1997” (McCarthy, par. 3). Taylor Swift’s 2013 arena tour to support her last country album was the most lucrative tour in North America that year, bringing in more than $113 million in ticket revenue (Sisario, par. 16). Critically, women have fared extremely well in recent years. A movement to make music acknowledging the genre’s roots has been lead by a group of female country musicians- to the admiration of critics and fans alike, if they get the chance to hear the music. Since 2014, seven of fifteen nominees for the Grammy Award for country album of the year have been women, with two of the three winners being female (Leight, par. 28-30). If women are given the opportunity to be heard on the radio and develop a fanbase, the chances to achieve a high level of prosperity are just as high as their male counterparts’. The level of critical success experienced by some new female artists shows that women and the themes they portray in their songs appeal to many people, even if the music is not being heard by the

To begin, Dolly Parton was born on January 19, 1946 in Sevier County, Tennessee. She is the fourth of twelve children of Robert and Avie. Furthermore, Dolly Parton described her family as dirt poor, which is expressed in her song “A Coat of Many Colors” (Perone, James). From the start, music was extremely important to Dolly Parton. She first started performing in Church with her family. It has even been noted that she, “…loved performing since [she] was big enough to wrestle [her] little brothers and sisters into sitting long enough for [her] to sing them [her] latest musical masterpiece.” Also, as a child she sang on the local radio and television program in Eastern Tennessee. At the age of thirteen, she recorded her single “Puppy Love” and appeared at the Grand Ole Opry. You know that someone is going to go far in life if they are that young and have already accomplished what most wish they could.

Throughout her music career she was inspired by many of music’s greats. “I watched people like Dolly Parton. Dolly knows who she is. She’s smart. She’s not just a blonde with (a big bust), she is a genius under there. She literally came from nothing, and now you go anywhere in the world, and they know Dolly Parton” (Miley, Entertainment interview) Dolly

Dolly is one of the few entertainers that will follow a song from start to finish being the songwriter, the singer, and producing the songs for album production.

The reason why I chose my topic to be Tyler Perry is because he is inspirational to me. I grew up watching his plays; my family would gather to watch his plays when they came to DVD. Tyler Perry writes great plays, he has a lot of work: ranging from television shows to having a best-selling book. A big reason to why I chose this person to write about was because I feel like he gives out motivating messages to the urban community. I feel like Tyler has a lot of information to write about so that is another reason why I chose him to write about. His hard work and determination are motivational; he went from being poor and living on the streets to becoming a multi-millionaire. One more thing about Perry’s work is that he acts in most of his

Whitney Houston is considered as one of the greatest singers of our generation. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, she holds the record of being the most rewarded female artist of all time. I chose her as my topic, because she represents resiliency and tenacity, despite her troubled experiences with drugs and her personal life. Whitney Houston comes from a family with an amazing, musical pedigree; her mother, Cissy Houston, was a successful back-up singer for Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley. Dionne Warwick is her first cousin and Aretha Franklin is her godmother. In 1983, Houston was signed to Arista Records and music executive, Clive Davis, became her mentor and helped launch her successful career. Whitney Houston was

Country music has proven as a powerful medium to express the views of the contemporary culture. As a result, the lyrical value of such songs provides listeners an insight to the changing climate of social and political ideologies. During the 1960’s defined gender roles dictated social lifestyles and were mimicked in music. In recent years, a resurgence of idealistic, stereotypical gender-specific roles have cropped up in country songs, creating a subgenre labelled “bro-country.” Jody Rosen of the New York Times first coined the term “bro-country” in order to describe songs that use lyrical tools glorifying prevailing, hegemonic gender roles present in culture. Songs such as Tim McGraw’s “How I’ll Always Be,” Luke Bryan’s “Huntin’, Fishin’, Lovin’, Every Day,” Sam Hunt’s “Make you Miss Me,” and Dierks Bently’s “Different for Girls” use the lyrical discourse, under the lens of “bro-country”, to highlight dominant, male gender-specific roles, while simultaneously reinforcing prominent, often negative, views of women.

The lovely artist grew up with 11 siblings. They were a poor family and lived in a small cabin. Music has always been an important thing in her life. Dolly Parton has been active with her music since she was a child. Parton began performing as a child, singing on local radio and television programs. The day after she graduated from high school in 1964, she moved to Nashville and after that her initial success came as a songwriter.

Charlie Pride did it in 1971. Darius Rucker did it in 2009. That’s it. Two black men, spanning thirty-eight years, are the only black artists to win a Country Music Association Award. With country music rooted in bluegrass and rhythm and blues, why aren’t there more black country music stars? When considering the roots of country music, and how closely related country is to blues, bluegrass and honky tonk music, an examination of what happened to all the black musicians seems warranted, no? This paper examines the dearth of black artists in country music and the careers of one of the few black artists who has had commercial success in this genre of music.

Robert Altman’s movie Nashville is based on the political, social, and personal problems that our country has to deal with. These problems are rooted in the battle between the need to create some false image of success and the need for truth which is the struggle that exists in every character of this film (except Jeff Goldbloom). To show this Robert Altman takes us through Nashville’s Country Music using political commentary, music and realistically portrayed dialogue to tell the story.

Patsy Montana was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas with the name of Ruby Blevins. She was the first girl born out of eleven children, she was the youngest of them all. As she got older, she attended school at Hope, Arkansas. Growing up in the Blevins family, she learned how to the guitar, by watching other people, and took weekly violin lessons. By the age of fourteen, her musical talent was shown greatly

Anna Rogers, a graduate student at the University of South Carolina, analyzed sexist themes present within popular country music songs and found that “many sexist themes exist, including depicting women in traditional gender roles, describing relationships with women in unrealistic ways, and attributing a woman’s worth strictly on the basis of her physical appearance” (Rogers). Unsurprisingly, male artists sang almost every song Rogers found to analyze for lyrical content, but this was not intentional. She simply used the Billboard Hot 100 chart to determine which songs were considered the most popular. This further illustrates that the genre is not only dominated by men, but it is also dominated by men who tend to express sexist views lyrically, which can then influence their listener’s opinions on gender roles and gender

Loretta Lynn was born Loretta Webb on April 14, 1932, in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. Lynn grew up in a small poor Appalachian coal-mining community and was the second of eight children. Loretta’s career began when she started singing in church as a child. When she was 16, she married Oliver Lynn. The couple soon moved to Custer, Washington. During their first four years in Washington Lynn has four children, Betty Sue, Jack Benny, Ernest Ray and Clara Marie. Lynn was still passionate about music and began to play at local venues. By 1960, she had released her first single, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.” She moved to Nashville, where she continued to perform and promote her music. Moving to Nashville was arguably one of Lynn’s best decisions. That is where she met one of her best friends and role models, Patsy Cline, as well as find fame and recognition there. During her career Lynn has garnered an impressive release of more than 160 songs, 60 albums, a total sale of 45 million records, ten Number 1 albums and sixteen Number 1 singles on the country charts, and was the first women to win the the CMA’s Entertainer of The Year.

Being a touring singing and performer can become a very rough and tiring job. Being on the road traveling for many months, playing different shows every night would make you really realize if singing is what you love to do. Ella was a singer for more than 60 years. Ella Fitzgerald goes down in history as one of the greatest female singers proven by the many awards and respect she received.

Hillary Clinton started her essay with a quote from the multiple gold album American country music singer-songwriter - Loretta Lynn, where she illustrates how tough it is for female artists working in an industry in which "you either have to be first, the best or to be different."