During the beginnings of the country music industry in the late 1920s and 1930s, the most popular public persona for female country singers was the "little singing sweetheart," wearing a gingham pinafore apron dress, a sunbonnet and pigtails. Early radio superstars such as Linda Parker and Lulu Belle both helped foster this image. In 1935, when Patsy Montana made the first million-selling recording for a female country performer, "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart," she sported a no-nonsense cowgirl look with practical, short-bobbed curls --- and she revolutionized the look of the female country singer.
In the 1950s, a young singer named Kitty Wells expanded the parameters of country music by singing songs about the struggles --- and heartaches --- of everyday women. As Wells' career developed, she grew out of the "gingham pinafore" look and sported a more contemporary hairstyle and dress. At the end of the Fifties, the women's country scene saw an upsurge in the "flip" style then so tremendously popular, but by the late 1950s it was a male singer -- Elvis Presley -- who created a sensation with his up-combed, sweeping pompadour hairstyle also favored by male "rockabilly" performers such as Jerry Lee Lewis.
During the 1960s, high hair was in its heyday. In the early part of the decade, Patsy Cline and her contemporaries helped make the high "bouffant" style popular at the Grand Ole Opry. By the late 1960s, female country singers were wearing an abundance of wigs piled high upon their heads. It was an outrageous-but-fun look, and performers such as Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn not only created their own signature looks, but helped to develop a country western "haute couture" of glamor as they appeared in dresses laden with sequins and rhinestones.
Just as the stars of the 1960s created their own signature styles, stars from the 1980s up through the present day have followed their own path to glamor as well, oftentimes reinventing their look along the way. In recent years, Reba McEntire traded in her flowing curls for a straight, feathery style. Shania Twain continues to wear her long hair in a simple-yet-glamorous cut, while Martina McBride switches between shoulder-length and short, sassy clipped hair. Contemporary stars Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson both favor long, sleek hair past the shoulders, often styled with just the hint of a wave.