Hillbilly Philly: The Ladies of Philly’s Indie-Country-Western Music Scene

“My motto is to not let old men in­tim­id­ate you. Just throw an el­bow. I wouldn’t be half the lady I am now if I didn’t make them make room.”

Birdie Busch (B Philly Photography)

Bro-coun­try may still be a slick, pree­m­in­ent sub-genre with­in coun­try mu­sic’s rur­al firm­a­ment and tanned, brawny dudes such as Kenny Ches­ney pack sta­di­ums with their gen­tle­manly jive. Yet, in the middle of June—on the same week Dolly Par­ton sold out the Mann and Dixie Chicks, the BB&T Pa­vil­ion—South Philly’s once-and-former bas­tion of bar­room C&W, Boot & Saddle, hos­ted a re­cord re­lease party for bit­ter­sweet Emily “Bird­ie” Busch. The long­time Philly-folk-coun­try queen, who re­leased her first re­cord in 2006 (The Ways We Try), stood on the crammed tight stage de­b­ut­ing her sixth al­bum—the psy­che­del­ic-tinged Thun­der Bridge—with her el­eg­ant nu­anced voice and her strangely subtle av­ant-hill­billy band be­side her. “I love how ec­cent­ric coun­try mu­sic got in the 1960s with Lee Hazle­wood, Ro­ger Miller, Hazel Atkins,” says Busch. She quickly adds Ger­man­town jazz man Sun Ra to that list, if only for the “emo­tion­al in­flu­ence,” po­et­ic in­spir­a­tion (the title Thun­der Bridge is a ref­er­ence to a line in his poem “We Must Not say No to Ourselves”) and over­all will­ing­ness to free one’s mind so that her boots will fol­low.

Busch is not alone as a loc­al cow­girl with-or-without the blues.