BayFest

By Amanda Hardy

Lagniappe staff

One of the most successful and talented women to come out Nashville in the last decade, Gretchen Wilson is riding the train of country music stardom with no plans to disembark. Her climb to the top isn’t just another story of making it in the music business, though; overcoming her turbulent past is Wilson’s true victory.

Gretchen Wilson was born in 1973 and raised in rural Pocahontas, Ill., 36 miles due east of St. Louis, where trailer parks are as common as cornfields and pig farms. Her mother was 16 years old when Wilson was born, and her father washed his hands of them while she was still a toddler. Whenever they couldn’t make rent, which was every few months, they packed up what little belongings they owned and moved down the road in search of another trailer to call home.

With only an eighth-grade education, she was cooking and tending bar at Big O’s, a roughneck bar five miles outside of town, with her mom by her side at age 14. A year later and living on her own, she was managing the unruly establishment with a loaded shotgun behind the bar waiting to defend her.

Her absent father provided her with the voice that would soon skyrocket her musical career. “My dad just picked around on the guitar and has a quiet voice. His family, I’m told, had a little traveling band. I think it was a gospel band,” Gretchen says in her CMT biography.

From an early age she could sing. Long before karaoke was popular, she got up on stage every night at Big O’s and sang along to recordings of her favorite songs for tips. She soon began singing lead for a cover band, and for the first time she felt hope that there was a life for her outside rural Illinois. She moved to Nashville in 1996.

Wilson became discouraged, however, after a brief encounter with a local musician she met at a Nashville music shop. She asked for advice, and he said she needed to create a buzz. It would take her four long years to discover what he meant. In the meantime, she got a bartending job in Printers Alley.

A few years later, with a daughter tow, she still had not succeeded in getting a record deal. One Friday night, singer-songwriters Big Kenny and John Rich (of Big & Rich) walked into a bar and heard her singing with the house band.

She recalls in her CMT biography, “John followed me up to my little cubby hole bar upstairs with his trench coat and cowboy hat and I think his exact words were, ‘Hey, how come you ain’t got a record deal yet?’ I looked at him in disgust … threw him a business card and a little homemade demo and said, ‘I’m busy. I’m working right now.’”

For months he tried getting in touch with her, and she ignored his calls until someone encouraged her to accept his help. He not only introduced her to his circle of friends, but he also taught her the inner workings of the Nashville songwriting community. She also became a member of the Muzik Mafia, a loose-knit group of singers, songwriters and musicians who get together to jam every Tuesday in a local Nashville nightspot. It was with these friends that she developed her unique songwriting style.

Wilson signed with Epic Records and recorded her debut album, “Here for the Party,” in 2003. The first single, “Redneck Woman,” stormed into the country music airwaves in early 2004 and became a hit, quickly climbing the top of the Billboard country singles charts.

Due to the success of “Redneck Woman,” “Here for the Party” was released earlier than planned in May 2004, and debuted at #1 on the Billboard country chart. She used the success of the album to make a name for herself by performing with Brooks & Dunn and Montgomery Gentry.

Wilson won the 2005 Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and she has also won two Country Music Awards. She released her second album, “All Jacked Up,” in September, and she is currently on tour with her sophomore set, featuring the hits “All Jacked Up” and “California Girls.” She can be seen at BayFest Friday, Oct. 6, on the Cingular Wireless stage.

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