Charline Arthur

[1] Described as a "flash in the pan" and a "woman before her time",[2] Arthur was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame[3] and has, since the 1980s, found favor with critics who praise her vocal style, her stage presence, and her influence on artists such as Elvis Presley and Patsy Cline.

Analysis of her works has shown that her most mainstream songs were her own compositions, but her lyrics were sexually suggestive and censored by both the Grand Ole Opry and Country and Western Jamboree, a popular fan magazine.

In the late 1950s she played and sang wherever she could[3] and for a while had a trio with her sisters Bettie Sue Farlow and Dorothy Dean Etheridge, but success eluded them.

[2] In the late 1970s she performed for Ernest Tubb's Midnight Jamboree show, and she retired in 1978,[3] living near her sister in Pocatello, Idaho on a disability check.

This 1986 album (whose appearance greatly pleased Arthur, then living with her sister in Idaho and suffering from arthritis[3]) came out on CD in 1998[2] but remains, as All Music Guide to Country laments, the only record of hers available.

[6] While Welcome to the Club attracted little attention, interest in Arthur was renewed in the early 1990s when the role of women in country music was becoming more important.

Two historians, Mary A. Bufwack and Robert K. Oermann, noted that Arthur "fought for the right to become country's first truly aggressive, independent female of the postwar era.

The book Texas Music (2000) calls her a "criminally overlooked artist" and praises her for her voice and her influence on Patsy Cline, Wanda Jackson, and even Elvis.

[7] The Encyclopedia of Country Music (2012) hails her "gutsy, blues-flavored vocal style and brassy stage presence", and states that her importance is far, far greater than "her commercial fortunes might suggest".