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  • Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass by Murphy Hicks Henry
  • Ashley Sorrell
Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass. By Murphy Hicks Henry. (Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2013. Pp. ix, 469.)

After Vivian Williams played the fiddle in two shows for Bill Monroe in the 1960s, the “father” of bluegrass music proclaimed, “I have never heard a lady fiddler who could beat Vivian and a lot of men fiddlers can’t beat her” (138). Despite this observation from an idolized bluegrass musician, no woman has ever won the coveted International Bluegrass Music Association’s fiddle player of the year award. In Pretty Good for a Girl, professional banjo player and writer, Murphy Hicks Henry, addresses why talented female bluegrass musicians like Williams have been largely invisible in this male-dominated genre.

The book is breathtaking in its scope: Henry documents women’s contributions to bluegrass music from the 1940s to present day. The contributions of early pioneers, such as Wilma Lee Cooper and Gloria Bell, paved the way for popular musicians and bands, such as Allison Kraus and the Dixie Chicks. Henry argues that despite the historical involvement of women in bluegrass [End Page 98] music, they remain invisible not only to American society, but also to other women who followed down the paths forged by early pioneers.

The book is divided by decade and includes short biographies and musical accomplishments of female bluegrass musicians who have impacted the genre. To narrow her project to a manageable scope, Henry looks only at women who made recordings and not singer-songwriters. This methodology, however, still allows the author to document more than seventy women who have contributed to bluegrass music.

Henry analyzes how women’s role in the genre was transformed through the decades. Beginning in the 1940s, female pioneers like Bessie Lee Mauldin, bass player for Monroe, served as supporting roles for all-male or family bands. For these women, supportive roles were the norm, but these positions in the “back of the band” opened up greater opportunities for later generations (53). Piecemeal gains were made through the 1960s as women took on the historically male roles of band leaders and album headliners, but, according to Henry, the 1970s was the watershed decade for women bluegrass musicians. All-female bands in the 1970s, such as the Buffalo Gals, allowed women to enter the genre and take on instrumental, singing, and album-leading roles. Women continued on this tide of progress through the 1980s and 1990s when musicians such as Krauss and Rhonda Vincent solidified women’s contribution to bluegrass music.

Pretty Good for a Girl illustrates the challenges as well as the successes that women encountered when entering the world of bluegrass music. Henry argues that the bluegrass community held traditional family and religious values, which served as barriers to women’s role in bluegrass bands. In this culture, women were still expected to put marriage and children above career. Henry explains the challenges many women faced balancing their careers as mothers and wives with tour and recording schedules.

The author relies on a variety of published sources and oral histories to document women who impacted bluegrass music. Henry uses bluegrass music newsletters to analyze how popular media received women’s contributions. More significant is her incorporation of oral histories that provide valuable insight into how women perceived their roles as bluegrass musicians. Some may question if Henry is too close to her subject as a banjo player and teacher involved in the bluegrass scene; nonetheless, her knowledge of the genre and its variations contributes to the success of the book.

Pretty Good for a Girl breaks new ground as a cultural history of women in bluegrass music. Henry also makes an important contribution to women’s studies with her analysis of how women made their own way into what has historically been considered a male-dominated genre. By making known women’s [End Page 99] contributions to bluegrass, Henry succeeded in striking down the myth that bluegrass music is man’s music. Thanks to Henry, scholars can no longer talk about Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs without mentioning the women...

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