Where Was Gretchen Wilson The First Time She Heard Herself on the Radio?

Gretchen Wilson grew up with her single mother in a rural Illinois trailer park. By March 2004, she was 30 years old and raising her own young daughter. Her debut single, “Redneck Woman,” offered a hell-raising antidote to the polished country-pop crossover dominating the early-aughts airwaves. Suddenly, the women who felt alienated by mainstream country music had a song just for them. “Redneck Woman” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country chart and put Wilson on the map permanently. Now 51, the “All Jacked Up” singer says the song changed her life—but not overnight.

The First Time Gretchen Wilson Heard Herself on the Radio

Millions of women finally felt seen the first time they heard Gretchen Wilson belt, Some people look down on me, but I don’t give a rip / I’ll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip. However, getting the song on the radio was a bit of an uphill battle. And Wilson couldn’t exactly revel in her victory the first time she heard it.

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“I was still living in a rental house, and they had repossessed my vehicle that morning,” recalled the GRAMMY winner during a recent interview with Taste of Country Nights. “[Because] you don’t get no money ’til you’re out there touring, so, the song comes out and you’re still sitting there penniless.”

A man arrived at Wilson’s Nashville rental house at 4 a.m. to repossess the country singer’s “little red Rodeo.” Seeing the car seat in the back, he knocked on the door to allow Wilson to collect it.

[RELATED: Why Gretchen Wilson Says Carrie Underwood Scared “Every Woman in Country Music”]

“So he let me get the car seat out, wasn’t that nice of him?” Wilson recalled. “When I started the car, as he was getting ready to hook it up, ‘Redneck Woman’ was playing on the radio.”

Cue Alanis Morissette.

How The Fans Made “Redneck Woman” Happen

Gretchen Wilson fought hard to get her breakout hit “Redneck Woman” on the radio. However, the “Little Miss Runner-up” singer says it would have never happened at all without the fans.

“[It] was really the fans who called their local radio stations,” Wilson told Billboard. “They called and basically said ‘You will play this song or I’ll be switching to the other guy’s station.’”

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