Dick Barrie's
Country Music Website

Top Ten Contemporary Female Performers

in preface to this list, I should explain I consider a "contemporary" performer to one currently active, signed to a major label and (regardless of when her career began) who is creating Billboard chart activity in 2001.

She need not be specifically "New Country" - just currently active at the top of the profession!

This list is created in no specific order - just ten ladies I reckon to be the best in the business at this point in time.

1) TRISHA YEARWOOD: We fell in love with the girl when she sang "She's In Love With The Boy" back in 1991 - and her fantastic voice has carried her on to hit after hit. Much in demand by the Nashville community for an ability to "colour in" a recording with immaculate harmonies. Hearing her live proves that her perfect pitch is no studio gimmick.

2) LEE ANN WOMACK: The new kid on the block - and one who is here to stay! Not a bad track on three albums, infectious personality and solid country tradition. She's going to be much, much bigger in years to come.

3) SHANIA TWAIN: I heard her first two albums before seeing her playing a low-key gig at Glasgow's Renfrew Ferry in the summer of '94 - so I was a fan before she kissed my cheek that evening! Along with Mutt Lange (first her producer, later her husband, too) Shania has hit on a winning formula, found a huge crossover following and will retire a very rich lady.

4) REBA McENTIRE: What a lady! Unmistakable voice. A twenty-year career as a country star in the USA has proved only a springboard to overseas success and even on Broadway. So professional, witty and articulate - a pleasure to interview. Right up there at the top of any Ladies List, matched only perhaps by the (very different) Shania and Dolly. Also has an acute ability to silence me with surprise CMA Awards!

5) LEANN RIMES: Young lady - big voice. From the first notes of "Blue" we knew we had a star a-coming. Has succeeded in crossing over to pop and winning overseas audiences at an early age. Hopefully, not too early - we want this one to be singing for us for a long, long time!

6) DOLLY PARTON: What to say? Self-confessed Queen of Trash in her carefully-calculated, tongue-in-cheek appearance. This is no dumb blonde - look at her career in films, her song-writing and her careful movement from style to style in music, and always one jump ahead of the posse! Like Reba, one of very, very few ladies in the performing arts who can be identified by only her Christian name.

7) FAITH HILL: Has come jumping out of the pack in recent years, with a couple of excellent albums, each carefully watered-down to attract big sales outside her country audience. Her marriage to Tim McGraw has given us the first real "Mr & Mrs Country Music" since Tammy & George - but let's wish the McGraw clan a little more luck and longevity on that count!

8) MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Not so much of a performer of late, she can still craft wickedly-good songs - and has no qualms about letting other record 'em. Very good musically, her varied background (her family lived in Japan for a while) and long-term collaboration with John Jennings offers her plenty of scope to break new ground, album after album.

9) PATTY LOVELESS: Paid her dues for a long time - she first went to Nashville (with her brother) in 1971 - and worked big hours on small stages before gaining a first record deal (and Top 10 hit) in the late '80's. Another coal miner's daughter from Kentucky, she was deservedly named Female Artiste of the Year by the CMA in 1998, 25 years after first hitting Route 65 to Nashville!

10) EMMYLOU HARRIS: Although this Alabama girl had made an album ("Gliding Bird") around 1970, it was when Chris Hillman recommended her pure voice to Gram Parsons a year or so later that her career took off. After working with Gram on his last two albums, Emmylou carried his posthumous torch through the '70's with her legendary Hot Band, and has since visited so many genres, and crossed so many musical borders , that every new album produces yet another facet of the lady. The hair may be grey now, but the voice remains beautifully pure.

Not easy, picking out only ten! If it gives any consolations to champions of their cause, a "mention in dispatches" must also be given to the likes of CHELY WRIGHT (awfully close, Chely!), WYNONNA, PAM TILLIS, TANYA TUCKER, SUZY BOGGUSS and NANCI GRIFFITH, while the newer names who will surely assume future greatness (and might expect to be included in similar listings next time around) would have to include DANNI LEIGH, CHALEE TENNISON and TERRI CLARK. Just watch!

DICK BARRIE - 01/3/01