Commercially, country music can appear to be a male-dominated genre. Trends like "bro-country" and controversies like 2015's "Tomato-gate" painted a picture of a format with women as rare outliers amid a sea of male voices and perspectives.
Though the gender imbalance on radio and in festival lineups remains glaring, women in the genre have flourished and diversified in recent years. Artists like Carly Pearce, Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini have found a variety of paths to the top of their fields, both with and without the support of country radio.
But women's position as change-makers in country music is not a new phenomenon. From its earliest iteration, country music has seen the impact of powerful female figures who helped lay the groundwork for the positive change we're seeing today.
Through the years, the artists who push country music's boundaries, braid it with other genres, or reimagine what a country song can look like have often been women. And it's not just the women on stage who are changing the game: Country music has also benefited from women visionaries behind the scenes, who helped establish some of Music City's most beloved traditions and wrote some of its most canonical songs.
In honor of Women's History Month, GRAMMY.com highlights some of country music's pioneering women who have left — and continue to leave — their mark on the genre.
"Mother" Maybelle Carter: Carter Family matriarch who invented the "Carter scratch" and became known as the "Mother of Country Music"
A member of the Grand Ole Opry and Country Music Hall of Fame, the late "Mother" Maybelle Carter is best known as the matriarch of country music's renowned Carter Family.
Born Maybelle Addington, she was already a skilled guitarist by age 12. At age 18, she and her husband E.J. Carter began performing as the Carter Family. In various iterations, the family band won recognition through the 1940s and '50s. A mother of three daughters, Carter's middle child, June, became a star in her own right with her husband Johnny Cash; together, they became one of the best-loved country duos of the '60s and beyond.
Early in her career, Maybelle Carter achieved acclaim for her patented "Carter Scratch" guitar style, a method which used the guitar to create multiple instrumental lines at once, instead of using it solely as a rhythm instrument. Earl Scruggs, Chet Akins and Johnny Cash all emulated her finger-picking style.
Until her death in 1978, Carter was an active living legend in country music. More than four decades later, her songs like "Wabash Cannonball" and "Wildwood Flower" have become classics of the genre.
Dolly Parton: A seven-decade country veteran who broke boundaries with empowering lyrics and a feminist mentality
Born the fourth of 12 children to a poor farming family in rural Tennessee, Dolly Parton showed musical promise from an early age. After graduating from high school and moving to Nashville, she landed a slot as the "girl singer" on country star Porter Wagoner's variety show — a role that eventually resulted in her iconic hit "I Will Always Love You," which she wrote as a farewell to Wagoner upon embarking on a solo career.
In the years since, Parton has become one of country music's most prolific veterans and beloved stars. In addition to releasing 50 studio albums — many of which she wrote almost entirely on her own — Parton has won numerous awards (including 10 GRAMMYs) and holds the record for most No. 1 hits on the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart by a female artist with 25.
Along with those country hits, Parton's crossover into pop radio with songs like "Jolene" and "Here You Come Again" was historic for her time, inspiring genre-bending country artists such as Shania Twain, Taylor Swift, Maren Morris, Kacey Musgraves, and a slew of others.
Her impact has spanned far beyond the genre, too. Parton has starred in several films, earning Golden Globe nominations for her acting in 9 To 5 and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. (She also received Best Original Song nods at both the Oscars and Golden Globes for 9 To 5 and Transamerica.)
What's more, Parton has proven to be one of country's most powerful businesswomen thanks to her entertainment venture, The Dollywood Company. She's also one of the genre's most giving artists: Parton has founded a number of charitable and philanthropic organizations, including the Dollywood Foundation, which aids poverty and education in her hometown in east Tennessee. She has also made considerable contributions to various causes, including $1 million to fund research for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and $700,000 to help Tennessee flood victims in 2021.
At 76 years old, Parton's popularity today is as fervent as ever. She remains a pillar of traditional country music, and is a member of the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Jo Walker-Meador: Country Music Association's longest-serving executive director
Visionary music executive Jo Walker-Meador helped transform Nashville from a mid-size music hub into the capital of country music. She served as the executive director of the Country Music Association from 1962 to 1991, the organization's longest-standing director.
A year before she assumed office, the CMA had created the Country Music Hall of Fame, and Walker-Meador helped build and expand the Hall through a national fundraising campaign. The initiative also helped establish the CMA's annual country music awards show, the CMA Awards.
Another program that flourished under her tenure was Fan Fair, a festival that launched in 1972 and is now known as the CMA Music Festival. Though she retired in the early '90s, Walker-Meador remained closely involved in the music business, serving as a mentor for young music scholars who were assembling books about Nashville, the music industry and the CMA. She became a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame in '95, and died in 2017.
The Love Junkies: A songwriting team who together (and separately) have written many of the genre's beloved songs
Hillary Lindsey, Liz Rose and Lori McKenna — collectively known as songwriter trio the Love Junkies — have together (and separately) written some of country music's greatest modern hits. As a team, they've written for and with stars like Miranda Lambert and Lady A. One of their most notable contributions is Little Big Town's "Girl Crush," a chart-topping hit that won two GRAMMY Awards (including Best Country Song) in 2016.
Independently, the three women are also influential Nashville songwriters: Lori McKenna penned Tim McGraw's CMA Song of the Year-winning "Humble and Kind"; Liz Rose is a co-writer on 17 of Taylor Swift's songs, including "You Belong With Me," "All Too Well" and "Teardrops on My Guitar"; and Lindsey is known as the pen behind Carrie Underwood's GRAMMY-winning "Jesus, Take the Wheel."
Mickey Guyton: A rising star who fights for equal representation in country
An artist who toiled at the fringes of the Nashville music community for years before ever seeing major recognition, Mickey Guyton finally saw her star rise in 2020 when she began to release songs that detailed her experience as a Black woman in country music and in America.
Inspired in part by the Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of George Floyd, Guyton released "Black Like Me" in 2020. The GRAMMY-nominated song was featured on Guyton's powerful debut album, 2021's Remember Her Name, which features several tracks that speak specifically to her experience as a Black woman in country music and in the world at large.
As Guyton's profile grew, her message-forward music — including the thought-provoking "What Are You Gonna Tell Her?" and the bouncy anthem "Different" — began to spur a conversation about the dramatic lack of representation of Black and other minorities in the format. She gave a moving performance of her Remember Her Name track "Love My Hair" at the 2021 CMA Awards, where she was joined onstage by two more rising stars, Brittney Spencer and Madeline Edwards.
Guyton's growing presence in the country world has opened up doors for a host of new Black voices, like Spencer and Edwards, as well as Breland and Blanco Brown. She received nominations in three of the four country categories at the 2022 Grammy Awards, including Best Country Album for Remember Her Name.
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