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Women Who Sing to Us : Three Groundbreaking Sirens

“Every genre of music has an extraordinarily great musician.” I say this when I tell people that I like all kinds of music, yes, even country. I particularly love country music from the 50’s and 60’s where the lines between country and rock ‘n’ roll are blurred in popular music of the time. The haunting voices singing stories of heartbreak and loneliness to eerily upbeat music creates a sensation that few pop songs of today can even compare.

Here are three artists, who in fact were groundbreaking musicians of their time, the beloved Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells, the first woman to top country charts, and Wanda Jackson, the first female rock musician.

Patsy Cline

At the age of 30 Patsy Cline’s life was cut short in at the height of her career, she has left a legacy as one of the greatest singers of all time. Her haunting voice is often heard singing Crazy and Walkin’ After Midnight here we have a lesser known but compelling Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray

Kitty Wells

In 1952 Kitty Wells was the first woman to top the US Country Charts, with It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels blaming cheating men for creating cheating women. Ms. Wells is attributed to paving the way for other female artists who rejected the submissive stereotype of women of that time, I particularly the juxtaposition between Kitty Wells and the Stand by Your Man mentality. Here’s There’s Poison in Your Heart

Wanda Jackson

Wanda Jackson began her career singing country gospels, but in 1954 she went on tour with Elvis Presley whom she dated, and was influenced to move away from country and try rock and roll, becoming the first woman to perform rock music. At the time rock and roll was controversial by itself, but with her intense voice and fringy low cut dresses she made quite the image of the bad girl, even though she was actually quite nice. Here’s one of her songs, Cool Love

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