'Nashville Girl' (1976) found a big country market in Europe

The musical 'Nashville Girl' is directed by dancer Gus Trikonis and produced by his friend Roger Corman. This is important as the major studios were applying pressure to cast established singers in musicals in the 1970s, but a number of independent filmmakers went the other way.

A year earlier, Brian De Palma had cast Jessica Harper in 'Phantom Of The Paradise' (1974); Harper would go on to make 'Shock Treatment' (1981), Jim Sharman's follow-up to 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' (1975) which had starred Susan Sarandon. Cindy Williams headlined 'The First Nudie Musical' (1976). Drummer Cheryl Smith took the title role in 'Cinderella' (1977) and an ensemble cast was assembled for the follow-up 'Fairy Tales' (1978). There are other examples, but when ardent feminist Sissy Spacek went on to win an Oscar for her work in the country biopic 'The Coal Miner's Daughter' (1980), having cut just a single pop single (a comic rebuke to John Lennon) in her relative youth, executives began to rethink things.

Corman wanted to tap into the country music market so he cannily cast Johnny Rodriguez in a supporting role. He backed the selection of Monica Gayle due to her audition and says he was particularly impressed by her ability to improvise. Corman and Trikonis went with their gut on casting, despite the critical establishment view that a musical needed a Barbra Streisand calibre singer to be worthy. In the wake of Robert Altman's epic 'Nashville' (1975), Trikonis instead offered a dark counterpoint, a film that helped establish amateurs in musicals during the golden era of independent American filmmaking.

'Nashville Girl' was successful in Europe which came as a surprise to Corman who'd been foucsed on the domestic market as he knew how popular country & western music was at home. It had another successful box-office run when it was retitled 'Country Music Daughter' and redistributed to capitalise on the success of 'Coal Miner's Daughter'. Corman says it's one of the pictures he remains most proud of.