Twenty-two years ago, Gretchen Wilson name-dropped Tanya Tucker in “Redneck Woman,” and Tucker showed up in the music video to prove it. Now Tucker is coming back to actually sing the song with her. That’s how you close a circle.
Gretchen Wilson announced on Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast that she’s re-recording her 2004 debut album, Here for the Party, as a full duets project on her own independent label, Redneck Records. Every single track will feature a guest vocalist except for “Pocahontas Proud,” the album closer. “That’s the final track on there because that one’s a little too personal. I couldn’t imagine asking someone else to sing that they’re from Pocahontas when I don’t even really want to sing that,” Wilson said.
Fair point. That one belongs to her and Pocahontas, Illinois, alone.
The Lineup Reads Like a Country Music Fantasy Draft
Tanya Tucker will sing on “Redneck Woman.” That pairing was practically written in the stars since Tucker was name-dropped in the original lyrics and appeared in the 2004 music video. Putting her actual voice on the track 22 years later is the kind of move that makes longtime fans lose their minds.
Cody Johnson will take “When I Think About Cheatin’,” and the story behind it is the best part. “I played a show a few weeks ago with the amazing Cody Johnson, and he told me he and his wife have a favorite song on that record,” Wilson said. “So he’s going to sing that one with me, ‘When I Think About Cheating.'” The fact that Cody Johnson’s wife picked the song makes this feel less like a business deal and more like a favor between friends.
Wilson also confirmed Travis Tritt on “Holding You,” Ashley McBryde on one track, and Miranda Lambert on another, though she hasn’t said which songs Lambert and McBryde will take. She added that she’s “almost 100 percent” on securing Ella Langley, which would put one of the hottest names in country right now on an album that helped shape what female country sounds like today.
That’s a lineup that spans three generations of country music. Tucker, Tritt, Lambert, McBryde, Johnson, and potentially Langley, all on the same record. Legends and new blood side by side. That combination alone would make this one of the most talked-about country albums of the year before a single note is tracked.
The Album That Changed What a Debut Could Do
For anyone who wasn’t around in 2004 or needs a reminder of just how hard this album hit, here’s the short version. “Here for the Party” debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard 200 with 227,000 first-week copies, shattering the record for the highest opening week from a debut country artist at the time. “Redneck Woman” was the first solo female country No. 1 in two years. The album earned four Grammy nominations, and Wilson won Best Female Country Vocal Performance. As of 2023, it’s certified 5x Platinum with over five million copies sold.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. Wilson was a high school dropout from a town most people can’t find on a map who was tending bar in Nashville for seven years before anyone gave her a record deal. John Rich of Big and Rich pulled her into the MuzikMafia, and the rest is country music history.
“‘Redneck Woman’ was just different enough at that time and authentic enough in that moment to become an anthem for women who weren’t being talked to, or talked about either,” Wilson told Rolling Stone. “I’m a very proud woman. I actually like myself. I like the things I’ve been able to accomplish.”
Good. She should.
Wilson is also currently appearing on CBS’s new music competition series The Road, produced by Taylor Sheridan and hosted by Keith Urban and Blake Shelton, where she serves as the tour manager. And she dropped a new single, “Redneck Shit,” on May 1 through Redneck Records. Between the new music, the TV show, and a duets album with this kind of lineup, Gretchen Wilson is having the kind of comeback that most artists twice her chart history couldn’t pull off.
No release date yet, but Wilson says she’s deep in tracking and already knows what key every song needs to be in for each guest. When this thing drops, it’s going to feel like 2004 all over again, except this time, the whole party showed up to sing along.
