The Redneck Manifesto

It’s a long way from Pocahontas, Illinois to a multi-roomed suite in Dublin’s Four Seasons Hotel. Thanks to the success of her huge country hit ‘Redneck Woman’ and her quadruple-platinum album, Here For The Party, Gretchen Wilson has become the latest superstar to emerge from Nashville. In the eight months since the album’s release she has garnered three Top 5 singles, a CMA Award, two Billboard Music Awards and a Grammy. Not bad for someone who was virtually unknown a year ago.

“It’s been a huge leap for me getting to where I am now but I’m really not any different to the person I was a few years ago,” she says of her new-found success.
But it’s been hard won and the sentiments expressed in ‘Redneck Woman’ and album tracks like ‘Pocahontas Proud’ and ‘Homewrecker’ mirror Wilson’s deprived upbringing, which in itself reads like a classic country ballad. The daughter of a teenage mother who was just 16 when she gave birth, she spent her early years living in a succession of trailer parks on the outskirts of her hometown in rural Illinois. By the time she was ten she was looking after her baby brother; at 14 she was working in bars alongside her mother struggling to make the rent.
“Everybody was just like me where I grew up,” she resumes. “Nobody really looked at anyone any differently. They’re just very average people. And all those people I grew up with are still in that exact same place.”
Influenced by the rock ‘n’ roll of Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd and the country songs of Tanya Tucker, Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline, she left Pocahontas at 15, and began singing in honky-tonks. By the time she was 20, she was fronting two of the most popular live bands in the St. Louis area. Her style ranges from hard southern rock to classic country.
“People ask me what kind of music I sing but in Southern Illinois where I come from there’s a very fine line between country and rock ‘n’ roll,” she explains. “The jukeboxes go all the way from AC/DC to Patsy Cline and the local bands would play covers of country and rock. The same person would have that variety of musical taste.”
Arriving in Nashville in 1996 she became a member of the Muzik Mafia, a loose-knit group of songwriters and musicians who met every Tuesday night. It was here that she honed the songwriting talents and singing style that would eventually lead to her record deal and subsequent success. She now attracts audiences of between 8,000 and 15,000 in the US. Despite her insistence that she is an ordinary girl at heart the financial success must’ve made a dramatic difference to her life?
“I splurge but I splurge on things for the house,” she laughs. “I’m not the kind who goes to the mall and buys a lot of clothes. I would rather go to Home Depot and get something for the house or put up a fence.
“What I appreciate most of all is the burden of the stress of financial worry which I don’t have any more. People don’t pay enough attention to that – just how draining it is to be constantly worrying about how they’re going to pay the bills and how they’re going to put supper on the table. It stresses out people more than they even know and it makes you a little bit harder as a person.”
Later that night she is on stage at The Village in Dublin singing the torch standard ‘Good Morning Heartache’ which she dedicates to Tony Bennett. She and her band had gone to see him in Vicar St. the night before. But – get this – the legendary crooner is here in person, sat on a stool on the balcony upstairs in The Village listening intently. He had high-tailed it to Wilson’s gig from his second Vicar St. show, insisting that he catch her performance!

Here For The Party is out now on Sony