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N0KFQ > TODAY 21.09.16 16:54l 51 Lines 2401 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 8101_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Sep 21
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<GB7CIP<N0KFQ
Sent: 160921/1441Z 8101@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ6.0.12
1968
Jeannie C. Riley is the first woman to top the Country and Pop
charts simultaneously
When the singer Jeannie C. Riley said the word "men," it came out
sounding like "min." And when she said "eyes," it came out
sounding like "Ahhs." In New York or Los Angeles, her
deep-in-the-heart-of-Texas accent might have been as big an
impediment as Eliza Doolittle's Cockney lilt in London society,
but in Nashville, Tennessee, the capital of country music, it was
her ticket to pop immortality. With her career-defining hit song,
23-year-old Jeannie C. Riley accomplished a crossover feat that
no other woman would match for another dozen years: On September
21, 1968, she became the first female performer to top the
Billboard Country and Pop charts simultaneously, with "Harper
Valley P.T.A."
Perhaps never in pop history has one voice been more right for
one song than Jeannie C. Riley's was for "Harper Valley P.T.A."
Indeed, it was her speaking voice, and not her singing, that got
Riley noticed and picked out for the song. She had come to
Nashville from her native Anson, Texas, in her early 20s to
pursue a singing career, but it was on her day job as a
receptionist at that she was noticed by the legendary
country-music record producer Shelby Singleton. Recognizing her
voice as perfect for the protagonist in songwriter Tom T. Hall's
crypto-feminist tale of a small-town Southern widow's fight for
her right to wear her skirts short and her heels high, Singleton
had Riley record "Harper Valley P.T.A." as her first professional
demo, which was released as a single that charged up the Pop and
Country charts in mid-summer 1968.
But as big a hit as "Harper Valley P.T.A." was for the aspiring
star plucked from obscurity to record it, rarely in pop history
has a star grown to be as uncomfortable with her signature hit as
Riley did with hers. Many fans wanted to believe that Jeannie C.
Riley really was the Hester Prynne-meets-Daisy Duke protagonist
of "Harper Valley P.T.A.," and for a time at least, she was
willing to indulge the misconception and dress the part.
Eventually, though, Riley sided rather publicly with the
conservative values "Harper Valley P.T.A." derided by becoming a
born-again Christian and refusing to perform her biggest career
hit.
73 - K.O., n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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