100 Greatest Women #9 Kitty Wells She was called the Queen of Country Music, the genre’s first major female solo star. In the fifties and early sixties, her string of hits were unprecedented for a
100 Greatest Women #10 Wynonna (The Judds) One of the most extraordinary voices in the history of recorded music belongs to Wynonna Judd. As the lead singer of mother-daughter duo The Judds, she was part
100 Greatest Women #11 Alison Krauss The history of country music has long included women who have sought the crossover audience, tailoring their music so it will be more palatable to pop and adult contemporary
100 Greatest Women #12 Dixie Chicks They went from being the one act everyone could agree on to the most controversial country band in history, but despite the changes in the climate surrounding them, one
100 Greatest Women #13 Patty Loveless “I’m a combination of Linda Ronstadt, Loretta Lynn and Ralph Stanley.” – Patty Loveless, 1989 Patty Loveless may be the last of the great mountain singers who will ever
100 Greatest Women #14 Barbara Mandrell Every once in a while, an artist comes along who both defies and redefines expectations. Barbara Mandrell was one of those artists. She completely transformed the notion of what
100 Greatest Women #15 Tanya Tucker She was barely a teenager when she first appeared on the country music scene, but her voice had a tortured wisdom far beyond her years. Her early singles were
100 Greatest Women #16 Shania Twain The biggest-selling female country artist in history, Shania Twain achieved success on a worldwide scale that had never been seen before in country music, and hasn’t been seen since,
100 Greatest Women #17 Brenda Lee She was the rockabilly superstar that Music City had dreamed would come along, a pioneer who made the fusion of early rock and country commercially viable. She made timeless
100 Greatest Women #18 Cindy Walker For all intents and purposes, the story of professional female songwriters in country music begins with Cindy Walker. In an era where almost all artists and writers were men,