This week, Billboard is publishing a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Our 2004 Week continues here as we check in with one of the artists who defined mainstream country music 20 years ago: Gretchen Wilson, whose smash hit “Redneck Woman” and subsequent best-selling Here for the Party album made her the freshest and most exciting new artist in Nashville.
Two decades have elapsed since Gretchen Wilson set fire to country music’s staid mainstream landscape in 2004 with her debut single, “Redneck Woman.”
The song’s lyrics — highlighting women who prefer beer to champagne, and who leave Christmas lights hanging year-round — vividly detailed a lifestyle familiar to millions of female country music fans. It was also a lifestyle that Wilson didn’t see or hear depicted among the female artists on country radio and in music videos in the early ’00s. So, Wilson teamed with Big & Rich singer-songwriter John Rich to craft a song that celebrated anti-“Barbie doll type” women.
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“I remember sitting down and saying, ‘I can’t really relate to what I’m seeing on CMT, GAC, all the popular music video channels, and this is not real life,’” Wilson recalls to Billboard. “That’s kind of the mindset we had that day. It was like, ‘If I’m not that, then what am I?’ And the best thing I could come up with was, ‘I’m just a regular ole redneck woman.’ That’s a really pivotal moment, just writing that song that I knew was uniquely me. But I also knew, from a songwriter’s standpoint, it was about as honest as I could get. I knew at the same time that it was going to speak to so many women that were feeling frustrated just like I was.”
“Redneck Woman” was a true slice-of-life for Wilson, who was born to a teenage mother and grew up in Pocahontas, Illinois, a town with a population of less than 1,000 people. Wilson grew up in trailer parks, and was working in local bars as a cook by age 14. She moved to Nashville in 1996 and spent much of her 20s singing on songwriters’ demos and performing in local bars. By the time she signed with Epic Records in 2003 and earned her breakout hit with “Redneck Woman,” Wilson was in her 30s and raising her own daughter.
Music fans instantly connected with “Redneck Woman,” calling radio stations and demanding that it be played. “Redneck Woman” was released in March 2004; by May, it had reached the penthouse of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart (then-called Hot Country Singles & Tracks) and stayed there for five weeks. It proved a counterpoint to the smash pop crossovers of country artists like Shania Twain and Faith Hill, whose most commercially dominant years were already solidly in the rearview by the time Wilson’s breakthrough came around.
“I felt validated, but mostly with the fans, because radio put up quite a fight,” Wilson says of “Redneck Woman”’s success. “Radio was like, ‘Who is this white trash hillbilly chick coming at us with 13 cuss words in the first song?’ My argument at the time—and I had a valid argument, even though it was 20 years ago, before a lot of feminine movements had happened—my argument was, ‘I’m on the same record label as Montgomery Gentry, who just had a hit with ‘Hell Yeah’ [in 2003]. So, is this just because I’m a female and I can’t say ‘Hell Yeah’ in my song? So that kind of got ‘em, and they shut up real quick about that. But it was really the fans who called their local radio stations. They called and basically said ‘You will play this song or I’ll be switching to the other guy’s station.’”
Those fans didn’t just call radio stations — they attended Wilson’s concerts in droves, holding up signs of support and telling Wilson how they identified with her no-frills, rough-around-the-edges persona. “A lot of ‘em would bring up Faith Hill rolling around in satin sheets in the [2000] video ‘Breathe,’” Wilson says of the contemporary country image that was prominent at the time, which some fans found difficult to relate to. “It’s a great song, no doubt. They were like, ‘I just don’t think I could stomach any more of that because who wakes up looking like that in the morning?’ People were so enthusiastic [about feeling represented by my music] that they would show up and they would have homemade t-shirts that said, ‘Redneck Girl,’ ‘Redneck Woman’ and ‘Redneck Grandma’ on them — representing three generations, sometimes four. It did feel very validating.”
In 2004, Wilson earned the Country Music Association’s Horizon Award (later renamed new artist of the year), and the following year, female vocalist of the year. “Redneck Woman” won Wilson a Grammy for best female country vocal performance, while Wilson’s debut album Here For the Party bowed at No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart and was certified five-times Platinum by the RIAA. Three more singles from the album, “Here For the Party,” “When I Think About Cheatin’,” and “Homewrecker,” reached the top 5 on Hot Country Songs.
Wilson’s success also helped elevate the MuzikMafia, an eclectic collective of artists (including Wilson) founded in 2001, whichwas known for holding court with free-wheeling, hours-long shows at Nashville’s Pub of Love — all driven by creating an atmosphere of acceptance and support across a spectrum of sounds. Alongside Wilson and Big & Rich’s Rich and William “Big Kenny” Alphin, the group included ‘00s country fixtures like Cowboy Troy, James Otto, Shannon Lawson and Jon Nicholson.
“At the same time that we were being crazy, wild and having a party, the other stipulation was, ‘You got to be good,’” Wilson notes. “One of our mottos was that it doesn’t matter what you play. As long as you can play it well and hold an audience, we’re not going to tell you that you’re not country enough, or not rock n’ roll enough. You just got to be good. That’s why the shows would go on for six or seven hours, just one person after another getting up there, because we were a group of talented friends coming to these parties. When you get 13, 14, 15 artists all wanting to play five or six songs apiece, that’s a long night of music.”
In 2004, as Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” dominated, other MuzikMafia artists also mounted breakthroughs. Big & Rich’s “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)” rose to No. 11 on the Country Airplay chart. Otto released his debut album Days of Our Lives in 2004, while the following year, Cowboy Troy released the single “I Play Chicken with the Train” and his album Loco Motive. Together, the group broke through the polished, often pop-oriented sounds emanating from Nashville’s Music Row.
After the blazing-hot popularity of Wilson and Big & Rich in 2004, the MuzikMafia’s rising tide slowly began to level out. Big & Rich earned a No. 1 on Hot Country Songs with “Lost in This Moment” in 2007, then went on hiatus as a duo in 2009 and each released solo projects (they reunited in 2011). Wilson’s sophomore album, 2005’s All Jacked Up, didn’t quite reach the same sales heights as her debut album, while the songs found more moderate success on radio (though the album, and 2007’s One of the Boys, both reached the pinnacle of Billboard’s top country albums chart). Meanwhile, a new crop of female artists began making their own country chart strides in the mid-2000s, including Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Kellie Pickler (all of whom offered up polished, sparkly personas and pop-country sounds). Wilson’s own songs also helped pave the way for the independent-minded singer-songwriter Miranda Lambert, who earned her first top 10 hit on Hot Country Songs in 2008.
Scanning today’s country music landscape, however, Wilson doesn’t really see a modern-day parallel to what the MuzikMafia set out to do. “I would say the MuzikMafia was reminiscent of the early Outlaws, in a sense. I don’t think there’s been [anything like it since] — not to say that there won’t be, it could happen again — but it was definitely a movement and each one of us had our own position. I think maybe what made it successful is it didn’t get too big; it always stayed just a handful of us. It was a brotherhood and sisterhood, and we’re all just real close; it’s definitely a family.”
Earlier this year, Wilson teamed with Big & Rich and Cowboy Troy to launch their 20th anniversary celebration tour.
“It’s like walking right back out onto a stage that I never left,” she says of the shows. “Every time I look over at John, he’s grinning from ear to ear. Every time I look at Kenny, he’s being Kenny, which is crazy, throwing his arms up in the air — anytime you look at Kenny, you just got to be ready for anything that might be coming at you. But it’s been a lot of fun.”
In addition to the current tour, Wilson shares that there is new music on the way: “I’ve got a song that I’m going to try to finish up by the end of this month, and I’m hoping to have it circulating at least by the first couple of weeks in May. I can tell you that it’s kind of like [Wilson’s 2005-released single] ‘Homewrecker’ part two. It’s kind of a follow up on that kind of vibe.”
Wilson says she’s always thoughtful about releasing songs that showcase different facets of her artistry, while maintaining the rowdy songs fans have come to expect.
“There are songs I’ve written that are very personal, more ballady with a softer edge. When people go look me up and find songs from me, they are looking for the hard edge. They’re looking for that girl on a four-wheeler that’s guzzling Jack Daniels barefooted,” she says. “But definitely, there are different shades to my personality and songwriting and it’s pretty complex.”
Still, there’s a reason that Wilson felt “Redneck Woman” was true to who she is. “There’s always going to be that layer of me that is that girl that they expect to see,” she explains. “And I’m barefooted, right now, sitting outside on the back porch watching the train go by in the distance. So, after all these years, I haven’t really changed too much.”