Hillbilly Maidens, Okies, and Cowgirls isn’t an exhaustive history of women in country music. Stephanie Vander Wel doesn’t mention Maybelle Carter whose role in country music was formative, and her account ends just before Patsy Cline’s stardom. She focuses instead on three representative female country singers from 1930 through 1960: Patsy Montana, Rose Maddox and Kitty Wells. Their careers are used to illustrate larger ideas about class, gender and regionalism in American society. In different ways, her trio of women defy conventions while adhering to them, affirming “domestic ideals of rural sentimentality” while entering the neon-lit honky-tonks thriving in the shadows of city life. An associate professor of music at the University of Buffalo, Wel verges on academic over-thinking, yet makes many interesting points about country music, the culture it grew from and the culture it influenced.
