Book #26 of 2025: Her Country, by Marissa R. Moss

I've fallen behind on posting here in favor of Substack. So this week is catching up!

Even if you don't like country music - this is a good read. Might even give some insight as to why you hate it or why you shouldn't love certain parts of it as much.

I don’t normally post my little book reviews here, as that’s not my area of expertise, but sometimes I feel motivated to write and well, it’s my Substack. When a book speaks to my inner advocate and moves me (sometimes literally, as the head-bobbing this book inspired would indicate), I feel compelled to write about it and share that.

I have loved country music since age 4 or 5. The radio in my room, probably initially a rock station or maybe even NPR (like my father’s) got accidentally switched to a country station at some point and I got hooked. This was around 1993-4, so I was constantly listening to Garth Brooks, George Strait, Brooks & Dunn and all those guys…but also Shania Twain, Jo Dee Messina, Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, and the Chicks. “That Don’t Impress Me Much”, “Heads Carolina”, “Independence Day” and “Wide Open Spaces” were just as much my childhood as “Callin’ Baton Rouge”, “Heartland”, “Neon Moon” and others.

As I read Her Country, I kept having to switch from the book to my Spotify app because they would make reference to some ‘90s country great and I’d want to hear their songs again, and then they’d discuss the work of an up-and-coming or just lesser-known artist and I’d feel compelled to hear the modern marvelous songwriting before continuing. I listen to most books at 1.5x speed at least, so the 11-hour book would have been shrunk to closer to 8 hours…except with all of my musical tangents it probably doubled the length of my listen.

I grew up as the ‘90s heyday of women in country gave way to the jingoistic hyper-patriotism of 2001-03 (I can still sing every word to Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)” a skill I own against my will, and Darryl Worley’s “Have You Forgotten” was never far from my CD player, yeesh) which cleared a path for ‘00s bro-country. I didn’t know what jingoism meant at the time, and I was privileged enough to look at politics as a faraway thing that didn’t affect me personally, it was for older folks (I was a high school freshman at the time of the 2004 election season). So I took Toby Keith’s music at face value and sang along not realizing how innocent I was to ignore the underlying racism and nationalism, but bro-country was the first time I really tired of country music, because I grew tired of hearing about girls in Daisy Dukes and superficial party tunes. I suppose I started to wake up? Or something. Anyway, cut to me sort of half-ignoring the next 8-10 years of country music except to occasionally dip my toe back in when a 90s act would release new stuff or the American Idol generation (Carrie Underwood, Josh Gracin) would catch my attention.

Around 2012-13, I was a resident working in a hepatology/HIV/community clinic with Dr. Tony Martinez and he introduced me to the concept of allowing more of myself, the person, to show through in my work as a physician. Tony is one of the first doctors I met who modeled behavior I previously thought was “unorthodox” or “quirky” but would be the kind of doctor I would grow to respect, emulate, and befriend, because he is authentic with his patients. He talks about shared Hispanic culture, he knew the lingo when people talked about their drug use, and he was transparent about how much he genuinely cared about patients. I would not say Tony and I are similar in terms of mannerisms or street smarts or anything, but that authenticity is something I strive to bring, and it’s manifested in my extra-clinical work - my videos, my recent TEDx talk, and my advocacy.

That was a long tangent, but an opportunity to talk about a physician who is furthering the cause of community-building through medicine (as well as hepatology and HIV care) every day? I can’t resist that. Anyway, he also introduced me to the music of Margo Price and I knew “outlaw country” would bring me back to the genre. Jason Isbell was a balm in terms of his authenticity (there’s that again), Chris Stapleton reminded me what guitars could do in country and Sturgill Simpson played to my prog-loving heart but from a country perspective (at first - his rock chops are not to be denied). And then I heard Kacey Musgraves tell me to follow my arrow and this cisgender heterosexual male ally was thrilled at the idea that country might be evolving. How little I knew, but how much I learned in this book.

I was less familiar with Maren Morris and even less with Mickey Guyton (the book explains why, but when you see that one of Guyton’s biggest singles is a song called “Black Like Me” you get a decent idea) and I realize now I have been missing out.

See, one of the reasons I like being a hospitalist is because I am a generalist at heart. I like knowing a little bit of everything, and I like being able to use a little bit of everything in my work and my day-to-day life. As a kid my sisters always admired (and maybe were freaked out by) the sheer amount of random knowledge I could toss out at will, relative to our ages. Nowadays medicine has pushed a lot of that capacity aside so I am not nearly as good for trivia as I once was, but I still maintain that enjoyment. So when I read about how these three women of country and many others were combining classic country songwriting with newer tech and vibes, in a way that outshone that wannabe white rap that some bro-country had become, I was excited to read and listen.

First off, I had assumed “The Middle” was by Alessia Cara or someone like that in the pop realm. The fact that Maren Morris had acknowledged her country roots but took the opportunity to create a crossover pop hit is not necessarily new (hello Shania Twain) but that crossover is not subtle, working with Grey and Zedd and neither is the need to take the music seriously even as we enjoy it. Then I watched a clip of Morris doing “My Church” with a horn section and I practically stood up and cheered (yes, in my own living room, what of it?).

Mickey Guyton had a harder journey, but when her husband told her she was running away from everything that made her HER in trying to be as “acceptable” as possible in country music, I felt that. This book, the story of the resurgence of women in country told through the work of Musgraves, Morris, and Guyton, as well as a massive list of other great women artists, is a story of misogyny and misogynoir that has long been a mostly unspoken part of one of my favorite musical genres. Yet there is hope in how authentically these women come at their music in a way that has not always been true even for country’s biggest acts, and it’s what will keep me coming back to country music, and hopefully what will convince some of you non-fans to give it a shot..maybe.

I also need to credit this book for introducing me to Carly Pearce. Her tongue-in-cheek lyricism and songwriting are exactly what I missed about classic country music and I have listened to Hummingbird: No Rain, No Flowers multiple times. I have been singing “Truck on Fire” to my 8-month-old son and he doesn’t understand any of its vengeance vibes, but he’s enjoying my enjoyment.

The book moves quickly, and even if you’re not a country fan these are stories worth telling, and you may find you feel more inclined to listen after reading about these incredible artists. If you’ve read this far in my little piece, I thank you. I hope you listen to some female country today. Maybe just some bluegrass so you can feel like you’re dipping a toe. Maybe you want to support black women so you listen to Guyton, or Rissi Palmer, or Rhiannon Giddens and the banjo-oriented group Our Native Daughters (I’m currently listening to that album as I write this). In some way, move the needle to support women in country music because as with so many things (and I’m sorry that it has to keep happening this way), they are likely to be a driving force in preserving and/or saving it.