Lonesome Cowgirls and Honky Tonk Angels: The Women of Barn Dance Radio (review)

Most histories chronicling the women of popular country music in America begin with singers like Kitty Wells, whose rendition of "Honky Tonk Angels"—an honest and surprisingly cynical response to Hank Williams' "The Wild Side of Life"—paved the way for the chart-topping strength and sass of early recording stars like Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. But the powerhouse personalities and sometime feminist leanings of these solo artists would not have been possible without an earlier generation of women working alongside men in the trenches of early radio.

In Lonesome Cowgirls and Honky Tonk Angels: The Women of Barn Dance Radio, Kristine M. McCusker is interested in not only chronicling the names and accomplishments of these lesser-known women but in discussing the origins and evolution of the characterization and participation of women in popular entertainment—how and why were female stereotypes utilized to sell barn dance radio to an anxious nation? And what impact did the converging influences of new economics, racial and class tensions, and changing gender roles have on the creation of the entertainment industry in general?

McCusker shapes her book around six women performers: Linda Parker, The Girls of the Golden West (Milly and Dolly Good), Lily May Ledford, Minnie Pearl, and Rose Lee Maphis. In telling of Linda Parker (born Jeanne Meunich), one of the first female solo barn dance artists, McCusker spends a great deal of time on John Lair, the manager and radio personality from WLS in Chicago in the 1930s and 40s, who first popularized the National Barn Dance on a nationwide scale. McCusker's portrayal of the economic forces that led to a rush to nostalgia and the rise of red-blooded American folk music and the conservative social values brought to these early platforms is fascinating and surprisingly relevant today. Lair helped sculpt the independent and money-minded Meunich, for instance, into what McCusker describes as "the sentimental mother," a sweetly singing melancholy wife waiting for her boys to come home from whatever difficulties keep them away from the hearth. McCusker portrays Lair's desire to create Southern rural characters out of performers whose geographical background were much more citified and far-flung as a direct response to the racial mixing in big cities like Chicago in the first half of the twentieth century.

John Lair transcribed his own radio programs, and the written dialect that he used and that McCusker quotes frequently in the first half of her book certainly clarifies the tone of the National Barn Dance. For example, on page 47, he introduces Linda Parker with: "An now, folks, before we break up the party we want to take notice of this bein the eve of a speshil occasion . . . an dedica a number to Mothers." McCusker also quotes from Stand By and other fan writings of the era.

McCusker herself notes in her introduction that her desire to use the words of the performers and creators make this "an awkward history at points" (4). Indeed, it is not a traditional oral history, and McCusker does not include the only one of the six women described who actually sat down with McCusker, Rose Lee Maphis, until the end of the book; Maphis does not even seem to have had the historical relevance and popularity of the others. While we do read song lyrics from all the singers, and quoted autobiographical material from Lily May Ledford and Minnie Pearl, the shifting of tone and type of source material does make for a less fluid read than one would like. The material on the Girls of the Golden West and Lily May Ledford continues to paint a picture of barn dance radio's manipulations and economic and cultural relevance but gives us less of a view of the women's lives and personalities. Moreover, the John Lair quoted material, while transcribed, was still material created for the commercial...