"In the fall of 1968, Texas-born Jeannie C. Riley became the first woman to get a single to the top of both the Hot 100 pop chart and the Hot Country Singles chart: 'Harper Valley PTA,' a sassy story-song about a widowed mother feeling herself-scandalizing her hometown in miniskirts and clapping back at her detractors, the 'Harper Valley hypocrites.'"
"While it's tempting to call Riley's debut single and biggest hit a country 'crossover,' it didn't really cross over. It broke at pop and country radio stations virtually simultaneously—in fact, it got to No. 1 on the Hot 100 a little faster than the Country chart and even held off the Beatles' 'Hey Jude' from No. 1 for a week."
"When you walk through the history of pop-and-country double-No. 1s, and focus on the tiny handful of these hits by women, there are similar asterisks on pretty much all of them. Almost none could be called straight-up country records, and the ones that do qualify are duets."
Jeannie C. Riley made history in fall 1968 when 'Harper Valley PTA' became the first single by a woman to reach No. 1 on both the Hot 100 pop chart and Hot Country Singles chart. The song, a story about a widowed mother defying her conservative hometown, broke simultaneously at pop and country radio stations rather than crossing over from one genre to another. It even surpassed the Beatles' 'Hey Jude' at No. 1. However, examining the rare instances of women achieving dual No. 1s reveals a pattern: most are not traditional country records. Dolly Parton's '9 to 5' and Taylor Swift's entries, while successful, lean heavily toward pop with minimal country elements, suggesting structural barriers for women in achieving authentic country chart success.
Read at Slate Magazine
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